A Ghost's Tale
by SapphireFyr
Summary: Khida was content with living far away from the world of humans, such was life until Sarah came along and drafted him into her team. Now, Khida is forced into journeying with her and her pokemon, all the while struggling with his new imprisonment.
1. The New Arrival, AGT Chapter 1

**18 Feb 2012  
**

**This story actually started back in like... 2010 or 2009. Kinda got sidetracked for a long while though, but I'm trying to pick it back up~**** Needless to say, that means there's probably some revising to be done. We'll see what happens. Hope you enjoy though.**

**But first, since this is the very first chapter, some preliminary notes might be needed. First, the story is done entirely from the pokemon's point of view. Because of this, there may be a limited understanding of certain points. Also, there is a main character, the identity of which won't be hard to figure out, but there will still be some amount of POV-shifts. Second****, I'm not going by game/anime/manga regions, towns, and other confines. Pokeball mechanics may be different too.** **Third, there will be blood, minor language, ect.**

**...Also, I think I have a bad habit of making the characters rather moody and junk most of the time. xD** **Anyways!**

* * *

**Part 1 - The New Arrival**

* * *

A small, brown figure sat alone atop a steep hill overlooking the expanse of forest below cast in the darkness of nightfall. The silver moon and the dazzling stars above shone down on the landscape before him, making it appear vaguely silvered itself. A cool wind breathed and ebbed around him, carrying with it the familiar scent of the wilderness. It was a rich scent of the trees and of the earth, of everything he knew he belonged among. Everything before him was beautiful to behold in his distant hazel eyes. Every shadowed tree was magnificent in its own right, as was the forest that it was but a small part of. The only sound that hung in the air was the soft, naturally flowing rhythm of the wind as it howled around him, meeting with the long fronds of grass and the broad leaves of the trees to create a soft rustling as the unseen hand made them dance under its spectral touch. Khida closed his eyes and lifted his short muzzle higher into the night air, trying to savor the feeling of the wind against his fur, and the natural song around him that played compellingly into his mind.

Pokemon of the forest would never forget just how beautiful their forest was, whether it was cast in the warm glow of sunlight, or the contrasted light of the stars under the cover of night. But a pokemon's home was ever more precious. Always more dear. Only recently had he started thinking about it. ...Was this place his home? Until now, Khida had never given it thought. He tried to survive when times were hard, and occupy his time as best he could when he had too much of it... But he never realized just how fond he truly was of this place. Not once did he ever see it as clearly, or as tenderly as he did now. It occurred to him, in his subdued silence, his painful stillness, that what he was feeling was a sense of deep loss. Was this what it's like for all pokemon, faced with such a proposition?

Khida's thoughts spun around his head, all seeming useless to him, all unable to help him escape this fate in any way. However, another realization dawned over him but a moment later. Like a ripple on the flawless surface of water, a foreign presence was disrupting his peace, drawing nearer to him with every passing moment. A frown played negatively across his face as he waited for the pokemon to make her way though the trees. He thought to himself about how easily it was to detect her approach. ...She really didn't know how to conceal her presence properly, did she? He knew she was an eevee, like him, but a forest pokemon she was not, and she'd have a hard time approaching any.

Finally, the other pokemon appeared through the underbrush to his right. She wordlessly padding over to his side, stopping about a foot away from him. Khida glanced sideways at the smaller eevee beside him, a frown still on his face. Neni, her name surfaced in his head. He only barely remembered it. Without saying a word, she sat down and quietly took in the view of the forest below. The forest that was his home. He couldn't guess how she saw it, but he knew it didn't mean the same to her, going on much more than the look on her face. Her eyes returned a glance back at him for a brief moment, before returning to the forest again. In that instant, he got the strong impression that she was nervous about being here with him now. He guessed she was trying to see what he saw, but Khida knew that would be impossible for her. She would never know what the forest meant to him. She couldn't. In all likelihood, she had lost touch with her roots when she became her trainer's pet.

Neni then shifted her position so that she was facing him more frontally. He knew from the start she came with something to say to him, and it looked like she was finally working up the nerve to say it. But, Khida made no attempt in looking interested to hear it.

"It's not so bad you know... being a trainer's pokemon." She started, trying to be as unoffensive as possible.

He let out a soft grunt as a response. Yeah, right...

"Sarah's about as good as trainers come... She cares a lot about her pokemon... She's really kind, she takes care of us, and well, she's a great person to be around..."

Khida glanced at her again and gave her an irritated look. A small amount of rebukement flashed in Neni's eyes, however, she continued, undeterred, not entirely to Khida's pleasure.

"I remember the first time Sarah took me in... It took a long time to get used to things, but after I settled in with her it was a wonder, and before long, everything just seemed to fit together. Like, we belonged together. Every day since has been fun, really, because something new was always awaiting us the next day, and the day after that. New scenery, new pokemon... Plus there's the battles too."

She paused to give a small sigh before continuing.

"When Sarah found me, it was like a dream. Or more, a wish granted by Arceus himself.

"See, I was wounded and bleeding, left to fend for myself, but I couldn't... Not like that. That's when she found me. She gave me one look before she took me into her arms. Her skin felt so soft, and so warm, but then I was so cold... Sometimes I still have nightmares, where I'm alone and scared. But, then I wake up and see her sleeping face, and I couldn't be more grateful then. That night, she saved my life, and I guess I'm glad I can repay her by being her partner. It's not like it I don't enjoy it, either.

"...Though maybe that puts me at more of a disadvantage than you. You see, I didn't have much to leave behind. My old life was at fualt for the way Sarah found found me. But the new life she helped me find, traveling the world with her other pokemon, who feel more like my family than anything, is so much better than anything I ever had before... I mean, I guess I had a family before her, but it's different."

She paused to look at him directly, her voice still soft.

"If you give it a chance, you may like being with us."

After a moment of silence, she looked like she was unsure of whether or not her words had any effect on him. They didn't, he confirmed with himself. She silently studied his face, a confused, partial-frown across her mouth. She really didn't know what to make of his reaction, but then he was basically half glaring at her, half trying to ignore her.

"Like I said..." She forced herself to continue. "...we see lots of interesting places. Some are amazing really. We've seen quite a few forests too... Many are even as beautiful as this one here..."

At that, he bore his fangs at her.

"_No_ place is like here." He growled fiercely, holding in a snarl. "Maybe _you_ can throw it in with any other place, but I can't."

Khida didn't feel as angry as he let on, but he had to deter her somehow. Judging by the almost hurt expression on her face and her flattened ears, he at least put a dent in her courage.

He just wanted to be left alone. By her, by her trainer, by every last one of them. He didn't want a part in what they were forcing on him, but it seemed they were okay with not giving him a choice in that matter. He couldn't escape, he tried, but it wasn't possible. He had to go along with it, but he wasn't about to pretend to be pleasent to Neni, or any of them for that matter.

Khida continued to let his glare drill into her, before angrily turning back to the forest once again. Neni seemed increasingly uncomfortable, and more confused than before about how to go on. Perhaps, she would give up and return to where her trainer was camped nearby, he thought. Though, as time passed she just sat there in unhappy silence.

"Well..." She finally spoke. "All I'm asking is that you at least consider giving it a chance... Okay?"

His eyes flicked to her, and she tilted her head as she gave him a softly pleading look. She seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from him, but he saw to it she was disappointed. Without fulfilling her request, he silently turned away, giving no indication that he was even listening to her at that point.

"...Goodnight, I guess..." She said, sounding discouraged.

And with that, she padded away, her tail swaying low to the ground behind her. Khida waited for her to disappear completely, and with her absence, a certain peace returned. He flicked his ear in annoyance regarding the persistence of a certain pokemon. However, he felt just a little bit lighter after their recent encounter, but he couldn't place why.

Still, Khida had no intention of being a part of their 'family'. Now, he was left alone to his thoughts of what the next day would bring him, and his painfully short time to enjoy the last night he would spend in the forest that was his home. It's not like he'd have much to contribute anyway, if he did somehow become a part of it, so why would they try? All he can say though, is that that quilava sure didn't seem to take it easy on him. His shoulder and back were still sore from when he was sent sprawling into a tree. …And into a rock, the ground, the tree again…

Family... right. It can be a family for her, never for him. Since when did he need a family anyway?

* * *

"Well... I tried."

Neni said, crossing back into the orange light of the now low flames adorning the center of the clearing. The sleeping forms of a handful of pokemon and a human cast long shadows that crept up the base of the trees around them that marked the camp's boundary. Soft breathing and occasional low snores hung delicately in the air, carrying with it a sense of serene peace and warmth. A single pokemon was s0till awake to greet Neni upon her return, its lithe form lying watchfully over the top of a rock painted orange and black in the dim firelight. A faint glow surrounded the pokemon's torso as faded flames of a different origin adorned its grayed back, making it look like the quilava was slowly burning. Between the two sources of light, its face took on a sinister appearance underneath the shadows edging its features, but Neni didn't give a single thought towards her long time friend being any manner of such denomination.

"He's... hard to get across to." Neni spoke again, lowering her ears dejectedly. She couldn't help but feel a little crestfallen over her earlier exchange.

"I expected as much. You can see it on his face, he's not the friendly type." Scarlet returned with a matter-of-fact tone.

"Yeah... I guess." Neni said, her eyes falling to the ground as she recalled the male eevee's white fangs and piercing eyes.

"But I thought, you know... If we could him a friendly welcome... or show him we understand where he's coming from, he might be a little more at home here with us." She persisted, shifting uncomfortably.

"Home, is exactly what we're taking away from him. Don't forget that." Scarlet returned. "And every pokemon takes that differently, so you can't always say you understand their side of it. Besides, yours was a special case. Many pokemon live happy lives in the wild."

_Dirty, too._ The quilava mummered under her breath, almost too quiet for Neni's ears to catch.

"I know, but... That doesn't mean we can't try to make it a little easier, right?" Neni tilted her head, hoping to find encouragement from her friend.

"_We can try,_" she returned, sounding like she was opposed to the idea herself, "...but in the end, whether or not he fits in is his own doing. I'm not gonna expect much from him, though."

"...Well, I'm going to do my best to get through to him. No matter how he acts, he's still a part of our group now. We owe him the same as we owe the others. After all, we're all here for Sarah's sake, that's our place now, and I think... If given time, he'll come around." She finished, an edge of determination in her voice.

"...You might be expecting too much, Neni, but it's not like we can close our eyes and he'll disappear." ..._unfortunately_, Scarlet muttered under her breath again. "Time will tell if he belongs here or not. Don't think the punk is gonna get away with treating us however he likes, though." Scarlet finished sternly, letting her eyes fall closed.

Neni's ears lowered a little once again. Scarlet's dislike for the newcomer was easy to see.

...Now remembering how tired she felt, she let out a loud sigh before continuing.

"I really can't ask too much, but please, at least try to keep peace with him? For me?"

Scarlet took her time before replying, seeming to think carefully on it.

"...For you, I can try. A little, anyways. But there's still a long list of things I won't tolerate from him."

"Thank you, Scarlet."

Scarlet gave only a grunt as a response, before curling up on her perch. Neni felt a little more relieved hearing her promise. Scarlet could be rough sometimes, but Neni had known her long enough to trust that she really would try.

"You should get some sleep, Neni. You won't want to be tired tomorrow." The fire pokemon pointed out, before laying her head down to rest.

"Yeah..." Neni replied quietly, more to herself than anything.

Without any further exchange, she resigned to leave her friend in peace. Neni silently padded over to where Sarah was curled up in her sleeping bag and laid down next to her unconscious form. Neni brought her tail around over her nose, forming a tight ball of dense brown fur. She could already hear Scarlet's breathing slow as the fire pokemon drifted off into slumber. Gradually, Neni joined her. As sleep overtook her, her last thoughts went to the newcomer to the group, the eevee that wanted no part of it. ...Would this work out?

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**End of Chapter 1****... Some revisions since last version**


	2. The New Arrival, AGT Chapter 2

**18 Feb 2012**

**Precursor of how my battles are going to wind up, assuming I can keep up with this kind of stuff, and vary it enough.**

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A gentle hand shook Neni's body, forcing her to return to the waking world. She stirred slowly, only to find that her small body felt uncompliant. The untouchable remnants of sleep still lingered hazily in her head. They tried to shut away the world dawning upon her, but ultimately they dispersed as the new day cleared away the numbing mental fog. Neni rose stiffly to her paws and let a long, soundless yawn escape her, which she followed up with a soft, rumbling 'rrrf' she gave in response to her trainer, letting her know she was awake. Neni gradually blinked the sleep out of her eyes, letting her gaze drift up at the morning sky. The colors instantly caught her eye, from the orange streaks of the sun, to the lucid sky dabbed with puffy white clouds. It was quite a nice sight to wake up to.

Like the clicking mechanisms in the body of a clock, the gears in her head turned faster and faster as her mind rose out of the mist and turned over into proper working order. Neni softly closed her eyes once again and took a deep breath, letting the cool sensation of the morning air pleasantly fill her lungs. She liked waking up in the forest, she thought to herself.

Now more awake, the small brown eevee took in her surroundings. Before her, she vaguely recognized the same clearing as before, once cast in consuming shadow, not glowing in the rising sun's gentle light. Shadows still crept their way across the ground, but instead of fearing the ashen smear that was once their campfire, they fled from the shining orange ball suspended in the sky beyond the swaying emerald treetops. In the distance, the cheerful melody of birds chirping and singing replaced the relative silence of midnight that dominated last night. Her ears twitched slightly with the high-pitched chittering, but she soon dismissed it in favor of other things.

Nearby, a humanoid form crouched over the messy array of possessions left scattered around their camp. Neni's heart felt a little lighter as she recognized the familiar shape of her master, Sarah, going about her business of packing up camp. Her trainer wore an array of strange colors as always. This took the form of several pieces of threadskin that fit over her body, some tight and others loosely overlaying the others. She couldn't guess the purpose Sarah had for them, but she guessed it was for protection, as she didn't have thick fur of her own. Except, that was, on her head, where it fell over her shoulders and a mess of amazingly long, brown fur graced with a curious, flower-like blue ribbon tied on one side. Her otherwise pale skin was only visible on her face and her arms, as she chose to cover the rest. Rarely has Neni seen her reveal more. ...She didn't understand humans, Neni thought with a smirk, but she found it to be an interesting quirk of theirs. Didn't she ever want to go without, as was natural? Perhaps she felt vulnerable... She couldn't image being without her fur, herself. Perhaps it was a similar feeling.

Sara soon got back to her feet and broke off the tend to other things, one of which being prodding the others and making sure they had been roused from slumber. Neni blinked twice. A small blue dog-like pokemon, her friend Lin, was letting out a big yawn soon after being disturbed by Sarah. Her small but sharp, white teeth teeth caught the light as she did so, but the riolu was far from being threatening. The biped canine then rose to her back paws and took up a mock fighting stance before making a few quick jabs into the empty air. Neni's attention was then caught by a faint buzzing that suddenly cut into the air. Her gaze fell to the source, a rather large green and red dragonfly pokemon lifting off the ground, its face as frozen and expressionless as always. She briefly glanced at the torn pink ribbon tied around its neck. It was one of the few things that gave Darius personality in her eyes. She liked him, but as a bug pokemon, she really couldn't understand him much at all.

Next her gaze fell on another familiar form. Scarlet, still sitting on top of her rock a little ways off, seemed fully awake and alert. The fire pokemon was simply watching Sarah move about camp, sometimes glancing expectantly into the forest around them. Faint wisps of flame matching the orange hue of the sun wicked off her back and disappeared without a trace above her in vertical waves of light.

This was a typical day before setting back out. Neni smirked as she arched her spine downward in a long stretch, working out the stiffness in the muscles of her torso and front legs. It was comforting in its own right, peaceful even, seeing everything like this... But, something was missing, she realized with a perplexed half frown. Then, she remembered the eevee from last night with a pang of discomfort. Khida was nowhere to be seen. To confirm this, she glanced around the edges of camp, searching for the brown form she remembered from the day before, but expectedly he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Vaguely, she was aware that she had hoped he would have drifted in to join the group last night, but in all likelihood he was still on top of his hill, avoiding all of them.

Sarah, seeming to have taken notice of the situation at hand, strode purposefully over towards Neni. Neni had to arc her neck upward to see Sarah's face as she loomed over her, though to compensate for the height difference Sarah naturally crouched down before speaking to her pokemon. The girl's eyes were a brilliant sapphire, but to Neni they seemed to have a light beyond the surface, somewhere beyond the superficial appearance. She saw her trainer's mouth move as forming a command of sorts in her foreign tongue, but Neni couldn't make sense of most of it, as usual. Though, from what she could piece together, she understood that Sarah indeed wanted her to search for the missing eevee. That said, Sarah smiled brightly before she stood back up and left Neni by herself once more. Neni then turned to leave, heading to the edge of camp and beyond, towards the last place she had seen Khida.

Her path brought her close to Scarlet, still perched on her stone. The quilava's crimson eyes followed her as she approached, though Neni didn't see any emotion reflected on their surface.

"Off to find what's his name?" The fire pokemon asked indifferently as she passed.

"Yeah. He didn't appear last night."

"How sad."

She didn't sound the least bit concerned, but then, her and Khida haven't had the best encounter. Neni didn't say anything, but faint claw marks still streaked her body, and there was a rather deep bite wound on her right arm that that was quite hard to miss. Though, her wounds were already looking a lot better than they did yesterday.

Without another word, Neni took her leave and stepped over the crooked roots of the trees on the edge of camp and into the underbrush blocking her way. The light of the open clearing disappeared in her wake, leaving her to the cool shade of the forest. If Khida was around, she would find him. She just hoped that he would let go of his grudge before for too long...

* * *

Khida found himself staring vacantly at the ground again, resting his head numbly on his paws as heavy thoughts clouded his head and forced away the halfway-peaceful reprieve of sleep. He was aware than dawn had finally arrived, but it wasn't a welcome sight, as it banished the calming moonlight and signaled the coming of an end of sorts... What sleep he had managed to catch was troubled and brief, poisoned by unease and troublesome emotions of anger and sorrow.

This would be the day he is forced to abandon his home. He couldn't remember ever straying far from his forest before, but now he was left to wonder if he'd ever find his way back. Surely, he'd eventually find a way out... He frowned as he remembered the indescribable, draining sensation that prevented him from running. Sarah had cursed him, somehow, after that quilava of hers took him down.

Sarah... At the recollection of her name, the stress in his stomach twisted itself tighter, and the temperature of his blood rose ever so slightly. _Sarah_. He mentally spat at her name. What right did she have of making a _slave_ out of him? Of forcing him out of his home and run around the world in the company of those frustrating, submissive pets of hers. They saw no problem with what their trainer was doing to them, or him for that matter. More so, they gladly helped uproot his freedom with their own paws.

Realizing what was going through his head, he tried to push the thoughts away, seeing as they did no more than make his last moments in his surroundings unhappy. Khida pointedly took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves and allow his rising fur to settle. He repeated his deep breathing until his mind recovered some amount of peace, though unfortunately it wasn't much.

Khida began to shift uncomfortably. He was now somewhere between desiring to wander and stay rooted to his spot. But, after heaving a frustrated sigh, he sided with the former, reasoning maybe wandering the forest for a short while might help ease the tension within him. Vaguely, he thought of how it'd do little to prevent the inevitable, but one last romp through the forest sounded like a golden idea. With that in mind, he rose to his paws, putting the clear view of the rising sun to his back.

His mind couldn't help but wander to the little details around him as he walked... Such as the soft earth beneath him, which felt painfully familiar underpaw. Almost every tree stood by like an old friend. He knew he honestly didn't have any recollection of them, individually, but under the prospect of losing them, they took on a different intimacy. Inside, he wondered how he would be able to say good bye to this realm of his, as well as how he would cope with the far away lands to come.

* * *

Neni came to the cliff crest where she had last seen Khida, but from what she could tell, he had already left. She couldn't tell when he disappeared, but she had the suspicion that it was very recently. Quietly, she sat down in the same spot she had taken last night, when she had come to visit Khida.

Naturally, her gaze wandered over the expanse of forest below. The revealing sunlight cast down by the magnificent amber sun now bathed the scene in a whole new spectrum of living color, making the silver image she still held of last night seem to be nothing more than a dream. Brilliant emerald greens and oranges mixed together under the azure sky, while saves of soft white clouds flowed and glided towards some faraway place beyond the horizon. Everything looked so peaceful and full of life, welcoming any pokemon seeking shelter into its natural presence. ...Maybe it was because her species were forest pokemon at heart, but she always found places like this more appealing.

It really was a sight to behold... But, that wasn't the reason she returned. She turned her head as she scanned the grass-fringed ridge, but she found herself ultimately alone. Neni sniffed the air as an extra measure, but it carried no current trace of her species.

A tinge of disappointment prodded at her heart, for Khida really had wandered off again. The image of his still form bathed in the silver moonlight came to her mind, the distant look in his hazel eyes, and the snarl he had given her after she had said too much without thinking. She let out a downhearted sigh as she realized he must have disappeared to stall them. He really wasn't taking to any of them well, including Neni herself. But, perhaps he just needed was some time to think? That could have been the real reason he left. At least she hoped it was.

Turning over the two possibilities in her head, she summoned up her optimism and dashed back into the forest to continue her search. She found him last time, and she could do it again. The two of them would be back before Sarah knew it!

* * *

Khida steadily wound his way over the roots and around the mossy trunks of the trees, pushing past the grasping fingers of the sparse underbrush. He dully noted that his should and back had began to throb again, if only a small amount. However, it was nothing more than a painful reminder of the skirmish that sold his freedom and plunged him into captivity. One day, he swore, he'd get even with that quilava. The taste of her searing-hot blood had long left his tongue, but he could still remember the bittersweet pain as her crimson life-fluid scorched the interior of his mouth. Thankfully, his mouth had more or less healed overnight, though worse were the bruises that still stubbornly persisted. Black marks streaking the fur on his stomach also contested to yesterday's run in, where his pelt had been singed from direct contact with the flames on the fire pokemon's back.

A low growl escaped Khida's throat. He remembered the whole incident that sealed away his freedom quite clearly. It was roughly midday when he was surprised by that quilava and her trainer while roaming the forest. ...It had been a mistake on his part, being so careless. A strange look came over the human as she caught sight of him, and she started barking excitedly, her eyes darting from Khida to the quilava and back. Then, the quilava lunged at him, her eyes coldly focused on his body. At the time, the flame on the fire pokemon's back was negligible. While it did flare notably as she found her will to fight, it didn't seem to be anything to worry about. He was able to dodge most of her physical attacks, while raking her flanks with his own claws and jumping away in turn, much to her frustration. He couldn't remember why he didn't simply turn tail and run at the time, but he wished he had.

Before long, the beginning of the end had befallen him. Apparently, the anger of his opponent was all that she needed to turn the tide against him. It twisted her face into an expression of hate, her eyes grew cold and heartless, and the fire on her back burned higher and higher. It then dawned on him that he could be in over his head.

Khida shivered as he remembered the next part; the second, deciding stage of the battle, and the turning point that led straight downward into the abyss. It was only then when he came to face the full brunt of the quilava's battle ability. He wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing that side of her again...

...

A reaper of flame. That's how the quilava appeared to Khida at the time. Flame burned and flared wildly on her back, and tendrils of burning light waved and faltered all around her as if the air itself was twisting itself in torment of the sheer level of heat surround her her body. A fire of a different kind, streaming forth from the sea of her emotional state, lit up in her piercing crimson eyes as she glared at Khida with something that looked much like pure anger. Her teeth were bared in a soundless snarl, revealing a faint, ever-present light flickering from within her mouth.

Blood dripped from several scratch marks left on her face by Khida's nimble claws. As it dripped to the ground, they left behind a trail of heat behind them and splattered as they made contact with the dirt. Her blood was literally burning hot, Khida realized. More than that, how would he be able to get close enough to land another blow now?

The human was standing a ways off behind the quilava. The girl barked a command of some kind, and as if finally released from a painful brace, the quilava opened its jaws and there Khida saw only more flame. He quickly pulled his legs underneath him and dropped low, before pushing off the ground with as much force as he could muster, launching himself sideways just in time to see a stream of weaving fire sweep away the space he stood only moments before. The temperature of the air around him flashed hot for a brief instant as it passed him by. The tree that had stood not far behind him only a second ago let out a grinding screech as it agonizingly shed several smoldering branches. An ugly, black scar had been carved deep into its body from where the flamethrower had landed. The scent of burning wood filled the air and drifted into Khida's nostrils as he regained his footing, only serving to heighten his new found sense of fear.

However, the closest thing to an opening as he would get was made obvious by the diminished flame around the fire pokemon. Khida had a brief new ray of hope in his mind, that his opponent couldn't keep using its fire attacks one after another, at least, not easily. If he could manage to throw her off, and take her down before her flame aura fully returned, he may get out of this yet.

He couldn't run at her straight on, that'd make him too easy to counter, so he ran with all his speed as he circled around her, winding inward at an angle near instantly changing direction to keep her from predicting where he would be. His enemy eyed him closely with cruel eyes, a menacing growl sounding from her deep in her throat.

He wasn't going for a direct attack; not yet. He had something else in mind, for the moment, and it required him to be closer to her. The instant his opportunity came, Khida suddenly stopped in his tracks and used his momentum grinding down against the ground to displace the soil underpaw and fling it at her in a twisting arc. In the same instant the quilava unleashed another burning surge of flame, severely scorching where he 'would' have been only a second later if he hadn't suddenly stopped. It turned out to be a very wise move on his part. Or, more accurately, lucky. While the stream of fire only served to make the air painfully hot for him to breathe in, Khida's sand-attack hit its mark with practiced precision.

The quilava's aura of flame faltered as she desperately rubbed her eyes with the backs of her paws, trying to remove the dirt that took away her sight. She reared up and stumbled backwards on her hind paws with a painful look on her face. Tears wet her face and a cloudy vapor much like winter breath wicked off the glistening paths streaming down her peach-colored cheeks.

"_Coward_!" The quilava hissed hatefully, still blinded by the attack.

Khida dismissed the remark as he rushed forward, bearing his fangs fully only to close them around her flesh. In the last instant, sensing danger, she shielded her body at the cost of her arm. Blood oozed out of the wound as Khida drove his fangs deeper in from where they had sunken into skin and muscle tissue. The pain of it sparked a tortured shriek from his victim. From somewhere in the background, he also heard a second scream echo the first, but he payed it no mind. The taste of the thick crimson liquid in his mouth was a satisfying one, but the sheer temperature of the substance was quickly becoming too much to bear. Like an oven was being made out of his mouth, the pain of his rash attack was redoubling as it began to sear his tongue and mouth and purge him of his sense of taste.

He tried to let go and jump back, but his opponent managed to grab him by the neck with her good arm before he got the chance. In a burst of anger and surprising physical strength, she used her forepaws to throw him sprawling across the clearing before he had a chance to react. After colliding sideways with the earth, he fell into a roll, which was abruptly ended by the sudden rush of pain that came with colliding with a sharp hard rock. Bright lights consumed his vision with the impact, though it lasted only a moment before his vision returned.

He felt like he had needles jabbed into his throat as he drew in breath, yet he struggled to his paws. A dull, deep ache could be felt in his entire right side, most notably where his ribcage and shoulder took the brunt of the decelerating force. Though, his fighting spirit still lingered, encouraged by the taste of iron that still stained his teeth and had burned his tongue. It wasn't over, not yet.

He turned towards the quilava that was responsible for his pain. She took on a threatening stance as she stared back at him through her one opened eye. Vaporizing tears still stained her face, and her flame aura still faltered as if being buffeted by an incorporeal wind, but it showed no sign of dying out. Her arm was smeared red, especially around the deep wound left by Khida's teeth that continued to drip blood onto the ground.

Not bothering to wait nor exchange words, the quilava made the first move. She dashed forward at impressive speed, seeming to have given up her failed attempts at keeping him at bay with her flame thrower. At least, he thought, not relying on it for the moment. He wasted no time as he rushed sideways at her, forcing her to change course so that the rock was no longer behind him.

Then, in the final moment, she pushed off with all the force she could muster and propelled herself at him like rocket, aiming the brunt of her shoulder to catch him in either the head or the chest. However, in that same moment, Khida pulled a little trick his species often made use of. He met the rushing foe by suddenly jumping straight up in the air, out of harms way but only by a breath's distance, but just in time to fall onto his opponent's back as they passed underneath. Instead of colliding with the furry body as expected, she found claws digging into her back and side, and fangs finding their mark in the nape of her neck. Khida dug in as much as he could, feeling satisfied as the taste of iron that lingered in his mouth once again found its painful, searing delight of being renewed. The fire pokemon's burning back, however, proved to be immeasurably uncomfortable, but Khida's dense pelt shielded him from most of the harsh burns he would have otherwise suffered after pulling such a move on the quilava.

He could feel the pokemon underneath him stumble with the unexpected counterattack, almost bringing them both tumbling to the ground, but as the direct result of surprising endurance and tolerance for pain on her part, or simple luck of proper balance, she remained on her feet and kept moving, even regaining her speed after taking into account the extra weight. She would have a hard time of reaching him from where he held on. But, where was she planning on running to? He pondered this simply, his jaws still happily buried in her flesh. It didn't make sense; usually pokemon would claw and squirm, but not this one. What did she have in mind?

Suddenly, she launched herself into the air with him still on top of her. Both of their combined weight collided headlong with the dense trunk of a nearby tree. In the leap, the quilava had managed to turn herself midair so that Khida was positioned to take the full brunt the impact, at the expense of his own body. His grip instantly loosened and they fell free of their hostile embrace. The fire pokemon somehow managed to regain its balance as it came down, more or less. However, Khida fell in a paralyzed heap at the base of the tree, his head blank with the jolt of agony that had ravaged his senses.

There he laid, his teeth grinding together with enough force to cause his gums to bleed. That is, if the bleeding was unrelated to his contact with the tree. A retching cough escaped him, seeming to nearly catch in his throat as bloody saliva leaked from the corner of his mouth. He could feel the pulse of his heart clearly, but it had become such a painful thing, especially with the throbbing that pounded heavily in his head.

He forced himself to stand, but if he was unsteady before, now he could barely stand. His whole body ached and screamed at him, telling him that he couldn't go on. Buried somewhere in the swath of his anguish, primarily being his entire back, his spine felt like glass shards cutting and pressing against his battered muscle tissue concealed underneath his fur. He knew that nothing was seriously broken, somewhere in his mind, but he was finished. All he could do was stare hatefully back into the burning ruby eyes of his opponent on legs that threatened to give out at any moment. A defiant growl rose in his throat, but it escaped broken and pained.

The quilava just stared at him in return. There Khida saw a fierce look on her face that shined with vigor that he no longer could summon up himself. Building flame set the space between her bared fangs alight like that of a caged inferno.

Knowing defeat loomed over him only added to his misery. The bulk of his adrenaline had left him, and what small amount still remained only kept him from crumbling to the ground once again in a disgraced heap. Instead, he was now locked in this unsteady, rigid stance. The buzz that allowed him to keep a certain distance from his pain had also become a fleeting relief. Raw pain now made him a prisoner within his own wounded body. If this was the end, he'd at least meet it with dignity. But, that still meant it was the end.

A haze clouded his sight, and in the distance, he could see the smeared image of the girl from earlier. She was set again to barking orders from a distance, but she spoke in a broken and foreign tongue he didn't recognize, but then, Khida doubted his ability to recognize speech of even his own tongue in his current dazed state. So, he simply waited for the quilava, who was still glaring at him with anger in her eyes and flame burning in her throat, to deliver her next and final strike.

But, it did not come as he thought. She choked off the flame and lurched forward, sweeping him off his unstable legs and sending him crashing back onto the ground. The next impact felt dull to him, but left yet another deep ache in his body to join the others. He was barely aware of the world around him at this point. His eyes fell closed, no longer willing to observe the proceedings of the world. All he was left to focus on was his body's constant pain, but as if it were a forest fire that had begun to finish its course, it gradually became less and less of a burden, but it took with it one piece after another of his awareness, leaving him to numb darkness as his mind entered unconsciousness. A single thought remained at the top of his mind however. No matter what, he would not be conquered, even if they took his life.

It was then that a light rock of some sort collided with his furred stomach and rebounded off as if it were near weightless. Then, his body seemed to fade away as if stolen by Arceus, reducing him to formless energy and whisked him away without any effort or hindrance. He then lost all sense of the physical world, and only then, did he feel nothing.

* * *

**Author notes are probably gonna be pretty barren until I catch up to where I left off after my long break~**


	3. The New Arrival, AGT Chapter 3

**Still revising.**

* * *

Khida moved carefully down the slope. With each step, he placed his footing strategically in order to avoid being caught in the roots strewn over the hill or risk tumbling down to a rough stop in the depression resting at the hill's base. Gradually, his path had taken him further and further away from his overlook. Doubtlessly, that would have been the first place his pursuers would visit, and he was happy to stall them as much as possible.

Nearing the bottom, Khida pushed off the ground and landed gracefully at its base. Unfortunately, with the impact another throbbing pulse shot up into his shoulder and brought his front leg to the verge of collapsing. However after the initial shock wore off, it immediately dissipated and returned to normal. Hours ago, he would have been all out limping, but as long as he didn't push himself, he reasoned that he'd be fine. Jumping still hurt though, he thought with a frown. He looked back over his shoulder, and let out a disdainful huff at the phantoms in his mind, paying them little mind otherwise.

Though only a short amount of time had been spent wandering the forest, it did wonders to clear Khida's head. Now, only a small trace of apprehension lingered within his chest, but to him it appeared to be a precious and valuable balance, for soon it was bound to be disrupted once again. Like a dream breaking upon the onset of dawn, this place that was now his only solace in his troubled state of mind would be taken from him, and he would be cast into an unfamiliar and cold fate of an entirely different design.

He hoped to himself that he still had some time yet. However, he was sure they'd find him soon. And, like a harbinger of that exact, miserable sentiment, over the soft rise of the next hill stood a female pokemon that was the barely recognizable to him, but recognizable all the same. It was the brown form of another eevee. She stopping scanning the forest and was now looking in his direction, returning his stare. Her bright russet eyes caught the light falling through the layer of leaves above in a way that made them really shine, which would have been a pretty sight to Khida under different circumstances, but that was far from the case.

Khida's ears fell as the realization that his romp had just come to a jagged and thorned end dawned on him. Seeing his reaction to her, her ears fell likewise and a somewhat sad look crossed over her face. However it disappeared in an instant, before Khida truly realized it was even there.

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you!" She exclaimed while confidently bounding over to meet him.

She tried to give him a friendly smile, but Khida was completely unimpressed by her positive attitude. He really didn't want to be around her right now, if ever.

"We're getting ready to leave... and well, we need you to come back to camp." She continued hesitantly, still trying to be as pleasant as possible despite the knowledge that she needed to bring him back regardless of his choice.

"Right..." Khida breathed.

He really didn't want to see any of them at camp any more than he did Neni. But, he was expecting this type of encounter for some time now, and it was inevitable that they'd get him back there, one way or another. What would she do about it, though?

"And if I refuse?" He added while giving her a cold glare.

"Well..."

She frowned, honestly confused. It seemed like she didn't think far enough ahead to consider that possibility.

"I'm gonna have to... well, force you..."

It seemed awkward and uncomfortable for her to say. It really did sound like that was the last thing she wanted to do. Accompanying the put-off tune, an unhappy look was clearly written on her face to match her sentiment. As annoying as she was, he really didn't want to fight her either, so he wasn't fond of the idea himself. Especially, after his recent run in with that quilava, which still could be felt throughout his body. Khida's own frown grew more troubled.

"We really don't have to do it that way though..." She started, a certain hope shining in her words. "I know we got off to a rough start, but haven't you ever wondered what was beyond this forest? What I said earlier, well you just can't do the other places justice by just saying they're 'beautiful' or 'interesting', or just calling it..."

The idea of taking flight came to mind. He knew he couldn't run far, but it was a lot closer to the way he wanted to go out, as opposed to following orders like he was Sarah's pet. Or, picking yet another fight with one of her pokemon. Shedding some of that quilava's blood might be worth it, but the damage added on top of his own unhealed wounds might change his mind later on. Fighting Neni? He didn't exactly want her hurt, and she'd likely put up enough of a fight for it to be unpleasant already.

So, run it was.

"...really, it was like a whole new world. Its like, in some part of you, you know there's a huge would out there, but until you begin a journey like Sarah has, like the rest of us have really, it doesn't fully dawn on you..."

He eyed the other talking eevee, measuring her up. Even for a female eevee, she was smaller than normal, if only a small amount. It wasn't that she was just too young, it seemed, she simply had a more compact frame. Otherwise, she seemed to be in good physical shape, and had a certain grace to her even, but she wasn't likely to surpass his own abilities.

She noticed the look he was giving her, and realized that for once it wasn't hostile. She tilted her head curiously, breaking off her one-sided conversation for the time being. She mentally followed where his eyes traveled over her body, and after only a second or two, she figured out the reason behind it. In that moment, an uncomfortable, shared knowledge of what must come next passed between them.

Not waiting for the suspense to grow any heavier, Khida bolted. His paws connected hard with the ground, only making split-second contact before pushing forward at a rapid pace. He made use of all the agility and power he could muster in his legs for the sake of his newly found flight. He weaved around tree trunks with practiced ease, avoiding dense underbrush and running in a smooth flow of motion that molded the curves and features of the forest floor that seemed to move and writhe underneath his paws at his velocity.

It took only seconds for him to sprint quite a distance from the other eevee, and, for the first time since his encounter with the human girl, the beginnings of a smile started on his face. He was enjoying this more than he expected, and as a bonus, the adrenaline had numbed his shoulder, but he was sure there would be a later price to pay for putting even more strain on his body, but it didn't matter to him. Neni was a pleasantly long ways behind him as far as he was concerned, and that was a blessing that he held in his mind.

Then, over to his right, keeping stride with him perfectly as he sprinted over the twisted landscape of the forest, was Neni. Khida's mouth practically fell open at the unexpected sight. On top of it all, while Khida's breathing had begun to grow subtly heavier with the effort of running at full speed, Neni didn't seem the least bit winded, yet here she was, keeping perfect pace with him. A partial, almost apologetic smile could be seen on her face.

Somewhere deep down, he was impressed, but he gave it no thought, for the renewed defiance that had caused his flight rose up within him once again in all its previous strength, if not stronger than before. He changed direction to veer far off to the left, ridding himself of the other eevee in no time at all. With a new sense of urgency dawning on him, he pushed himself even harder. He could do little to increase his speed from the rate he was going now, but he got as much speed out of his legs as he could. He ran in a fury, using less caution than before when he swerved to miss the trunks of trees and other object that would bring him down.

Yet, she appeared once again, this time on his left side, no worse than she was before. Judging by what he saw, she was not only able to keep pace with him in his own environment, she was able to exceed his own stride, but held back to run along side with him. A certain heat rose inside his chest. To add insult to the situation, his shoulder was beginning to worsen and worsen as it took a beating from his dash, and his adrenaline was no longer able to fully deaden the pain. His body was telling him to slow.

Instead of listening, however, Khida changed direction once again to get away from her, anger now rising in his throat. Undefeated, she returned, a determined look on her face and a light glint in her eyes as she ran smoothly over the forest floor. He changed direction again, and again, but met the same result time after time. His previous hope of escaping her had long since died, but still he sprinted if only because, to stop or slow down, was to admit defeat. His breath became ragged and painful as his lungs had begun to fall into a struggle to supply his muscles with enough oxygen. His throat was also hurting from the strain forced upon it. Yet, he would not give up.

He pushed himself to keep going. He was trying desperately to ignore the pain welling up in his shoulder and back, as well as in his lungs, but he couldn't block it out. He no longer looked for Neni off to his flanks, because he knew he'd find her there, running along side him while not feeling half as bad as he was. Instead, he just kept running forward.

Before he knew it, Khida broke through the forest and into a wide clearing. Finally, he came to stop. An unhappy realization dawned on him, and with that realization he no longer cared to continue his struggle with Neni. A confused look played on his face. Not far away, were Sarah and her pokemon, the blue doglike creature and the quilava he was especially unhappy to see. Overhead, previously concealed by the forest canopy between them, a large green and red dragonfly pokemon glided over to its trainer, buzzing the entire way, having had followed them for some time now.

Neni showed up off to the side only a second or two later. She gave him an awkward, apologetic smile. Her breathing sounded a little louder than normal, but she still seemed to be in good condition, unlike Khida.

"Sorry..." She said softly.

Khida felt truly tired. How did this happen?

...Though, when he thought about it, it really wasn't too hard to figure out. During the chase, he seemed to have lost his sense of direction while trying to escape his pursuer. Neni had seized that opportunity to lead him all the way back to camp, carefully prodding him in the right direction the whole way without him ever being the wiser. Inside, he cursed himself for being such an idiot.

Khida looked disdainfully at the group nearby, his own heavy panting hanging in the air. He didn't like anyone among them. One particular form caught his eye in the group, however; it was one particular pokemon that he could blame for a sizable portion of his suffering. The fire pokemon just smirked at him in return, clearly showing off her sharp teeth in the act.

"How's the shoulder, still 'sensitive'?" the quilava's voice sounded a bit like that of a sneer.

Inwardly, he cursed her too. These annoying creatures would be the death of him; he was sure of that.

Finally catching his breath, for the most part, and with his shoulder now returned to the raw ache he had grown sick of, he heaved out a resigned sigh. So, his life here had finally come to an end. No tears where shed, but he felt the occasion deserved some. He consoled himself, what amount he could, with the remembrance of each opportunity he had used to avoid this fate. Ultimately though, here he was.

A certain sadness crept into his heart, for he felt truly wounded now. It was as if his will to fight was a barrier that prevented his wounds from sinking into his heart, but resignation breached that same barrier, leaving the wounds to sink down and crush some portion of his inner will. However, he knew it wasn't his spirit that was being crushed, just his will to fight this first battle.

Around him, the group started to stir. The girl swung a large black mass of threadskin over her back, which was previously resting on the ground nearby. She took a moment to bark something to the quilava before walking off to take the lead through the forest, with the blue dog-like pokemon walking closely at her heels and the yanmega scouting ahead.

Apparently acting on the human's command, the quilava strided over to where Khida was still sitting silently. A certain swagger was obvious in her step, accompanied by a dull gleam of superiority that looked so fitting in her eyes. She wasn't being blatant about it, but her opinion laid near the surface it seemed. Khida's aggravation flared a little bit, just being close to her.

"Time to get moving." She smirked toothily, flame alight in an orange glow behind her pointed teeth.

The fire pokemon took up position behind Khida, making a grunt of some sort that Khida understood to be a command to follow the human girl. He sighed inwardly, before pushing himself to move his legs, one after another, blocking out the soreness and pain that had returned to his body. However, it was not so bad that he couldn't conceal it. At the very least, he would save himself that little dignity. He wasn't about to be led away limping and pathetic.

Ahead of him, Neni took up the space between Sarah and him. She glanced back at him once or twice more, giving him yet another apologetic look, followed by an optimistic smile, which she seemed to try to offer him in condolence of his capture. He didn't really care though. She was one of them. She was with this fire pokemon at his heels, and the human that led him into the abyss.

He looked once more at the trees around him. He mentally took note of each one, as clearly as he could, locking the image away inside his head forever. One day, he might just be able to return to this place, but until then, he wanted to remember it as clearly as though he had never left.

Also, he only started to realize it with recent events, but there was some remnant beyond familiarity with these woods. It was something mysterious, buried, and forgotten. He may very well never get the chance to understand what it was, though, and what importance it had to him. And, he knew whom to thank for that.

* * *

Khida trudged on. His body just kept feeling heavier and heavier the more distance he put behind him. His soreness had begun to long since numb over, at least he tried to trick himself into believing. However, that wasn't the reality of the matter. In truth, he hurt. Every step hurt. But more than that, every step pushed a thorn deeper and deeper into his heart. This felt so wrong.

Several hours had passed. In virtual silence he walked ever onward, through the forests he had become so accustomed to, over the hills that felt worn by the paws of the denizens of the forest, like he still considered himself to be. They soon passed well beyond the boundaries he had never crossed before, for fear of leaving his domain behind. Now, the forest looked different, felt different. He glanced briefly at the other pokemon's faces, or at least what he could see of them, and it was fitting to assume they didn't notice the underlining difference that he himself felt. It was all just forest to them, he guessed.

Every now and then, he'd catch the trace of a forest pokemon around him, somewhere just beyond sight. He caught their presence in different ways, if not on the wind, then through the small changes of the surroundings, concealed in the rustling leaves and softly swaying branches nearer the forest canopy. Through an empathy almost born of kinship, he felt their sympathy for his situation. They watched on, unseen and unnoticed by the others, silently paying respect to Khida as he was taken away by the human girl and her unfamiliar pokemon.

Kida wore no mark of ownership on his body, nor physical bindings, but he still felt both imprisoned and permanently marred for life by his capture. He tried to not let it crush him, but he wondered how long he could stay defiant. How long he could keep from falling into the human's service. Forever, he screamed to himself in his head with a lingering spark of resolve. Sarah can pull him around by his intangible contract, drag him to Palkia knows where, but he will never have to lose his roots. Born a wild pokemon, die a wild pokemon.

Again, he sighed to himself before clenching his teeth and holding in a growl. He felt so unhappy. He was battered, but hid it out of pride... He was upset, but his solace was that which he was losing... And, he couldn't find any sort silver lining in it all. All he could do is hold on as long as he could.

Still trying not to limp, he looked upward at the sheet of leaves above choking off the sun's light, which was already softened by the layer of clouds above. His gaze then fell on the pokemon in front of him. A small twinge of distaste still lingered, but he was feeling to emotionally exhausted at this point to pay it much mind now. He just observed while he, just like the other pokemon around him, followed some invisible line traced through the forest within only the human's alien mind.

Ahead of him, the girl walked forward at a steady pace with her blue and orange thread-skin swaying around her hips lightly with each step. Her gait seemed surprisingly graceful, for a human, who walked solely on their hind legs. True, he has seen pokemon walk the same way, a testament to that being the riolu right behind the girl, but somehow the image of a graceful human seemed absurd to him. In terms of height, she easily towered over quite a number of pokemon, or at least those that were residents of the woodlands. However, he doubted her size made her formidable in a fight, but she had these pokemon of hers to do the fighting for her. A deeper frown fell on Khida's face. She really wasn't the type to handle a fight herself. One could easily call that being a coward.

Then there was the little blue riolu at her side. Khida never caught her name, but then, he never felt the urge to know. The little doglike creature walked alongside her trainer, keeping up with her easily and almost without effort, despite trekking so far on her much shorter hind legs. Her black paws still rested loosely at her sides, swaying back and forth in rhythm to her stride. She looked somehow tense yet relaxed in the same instance, but he found it same to assume she was a fighting pokemon, so that may explain it. From the way the riolu stuck by Sarah, and what he knew by instinct about dog-like pokemon, Khida gathered that she was quite the loyal follower of the human. While it was an admirable quality in to most pokemon, Khida admitted, he discounted it for fact that that loyalty was being extended to a human, bent on enslaving pokemon, no less.

The yanmega... He only got a few glimpses of it from where it lurked far ahead, but a faint disturbance reverberated in the air all around him, and while the hours passed had allowed him to tune it out, it was always there. The buzzing may change and alter, like a switch constantly being adjusted, but it never stopped. As for what the pokemon looked like, Khida only got a few looks at it, but the sight of the dragonfly pokemon stuck in his mind. It was one of green plating and red accents. He didn't really care about trying to recall its name, though.

Neni... He had lost sight of her. His ears flicked, his curiosity only barely touched on. For so long she had been trailing the human ahead of him, but at some point, she either wandered off or fell behind him. With that possibility in mind, he turned and looked over his good shoulder while still padding forward. Behind him, he saw only the quilava from before. She was staring off into the forest with a distant look in her eyes. She really didn't seem aware of much at that point, beyond the fantasy world that seemed to have enveloped her mind during their travel.

The faint thought of bolting once again came to mind, like some cursed, reoccuring urge, but common sense had long overruled that option, at least for now. Either way, Neni seemed to have disappeared. Inwardly, he reminded himself he didn't care. Maybe he just wanted to distract himself. Besides, he seemed to practically hate her when she was around, why was she so much more pleasant to think of when she was gone? And by pleasant, he meant tolerable... as in not a complete nuisance, like he usually thought of her as.

As if almost sensing his thoughts, only moments later she appeared by his side. She padded alongside him, giving him a neutral but still friendly look. Her eyes were as bright and clear as ever.

"How's your shoulder?" She asked, genuinely concerned.

Khida thought about rebuking her, especially after using so much of his willpower to conceal the constant torment that walking was to him, but there would be another time for that. He was tired, very tired, and that simple fact buried a lot of the edge he usually had in his words.

"...It's fine." He lied.

"Really... It looks like you haven't fully recovered yet... I don't think the others noticed it, at least not yet, but... it honestly looks like looks like your in a lot of pain right now." She gave him a nervous smile.

"Well, I'm fine. The only thing that gets me is being some trainer's pokemon." Khida added unhappily, hoping she got.

Despite not fully knowing how to answer, she continued, tilting her head to one side as she did.

"Honestly, she doesn't treat us much like pets, like you seem to think..."

A short pause came before her next words, as if considering something.

"True, we do kinda have to obey her, more or less, but you have to understand it's different for trained pokemon. The trainer and their pokemon work together, more like partners than master and servant. ...There's also a certain kind of fulfillment in it, too."

At her words, he gave her a rather skeptical glare.

"Yeah, I noticed how I had a choice in becoming her 'partner'." He returned sarcastically, his shoulder still throbbing.

"She really does mean well..." Neni's eyes fell to the ground for a moment, before meeting Khida's gaze again.

"I guess, it's just the way humans are. But, I really don't think you know how big an opportunity this is for you. In time, you'll see that, but you need to give it a chance first. If you resent it forever, nothing good will ever come of it."

She looks at him closely, trying hard to spark some kind of optimism in him.

"No. Thanks." He stresses heavily through clenched teeth, emphasizing each word.

Neni let out a small sigh.

"Look, I know you're not comfortable with this... But I'm going to try to make it easier for you. And if you let them, the others would gladly do the same."

Others... like that quilava? Khida seriously felt like scoffing at that idea. It was just that ridiculous.

"Okay?"

Neni tilted her head invitingly, or expectantly, he wasn't sure. Either way, she seemed to be waiting for some kind of response. Again, she was just trying to coax him into some state of cooperation, like she has a number of times so far. And, again, he didn't want to be any part of it, but he was tired, and his resistance had been weakened severely. So, Khida just gave a nonconfirmative grunt, which Neni was forced to accept.

Thus, the group continued on, for the most part in silence, Neni occasionally bringing up something or another with the riolu ahead of them.

* * *

**I think I'm looking forward to when I can try to bring out a little bit of cheeriness in Khida, haha.**


	4. The New Arrival, AGT Chapter 4

**19 Feb 2012  
**

**"_Anyone else sick of me describing Khida's wounds? xD I am. Unfortunately I'm gonna have to stick by them for... this and the next chapter? Until enough time has passed for him to heal, it's kindof inevitable._**

**_This chapter is entirely flashback by the way, though around the beginning and end it's tied in with the current day (the flashback's dreaded tomorrow). Around the end it becomes more clear that he's reflecting back, so beware the momentary change of perspective_.****"**

**One more improved in at least minor ways.**

* * *

By now, they had been walking for a good hour or two. While the group kept their pace slow enough for Khida to keep up without further issues, he found that his mind was gradually drifting away from his surroundings. Instead, Khida had started to relapse back into the world of his own thoughts, returning to different points of his recent encounter. His eyes fell closed, and his senses seemed to almost fade away entirely. He maintained only enough sensation of the real world to avoid obstacles lying in his path ahead, but his attention otherwise shifted to the memory fighting its way to the surface.

In his mind's eye, he saw only the higher form of darkness he felt then. It was somehow beyond being simply black. It was not a simple lack of light, but more like the incapability of ever sustaining it. His physical body seemed lost, floating, immaterial; unhindered by any form of weight or resistance. His senses had likewise dissipated along with his body, for the most part, but his mind was still aware.

He wasn't scared, but then, he wasn't much of anything really. He couldn't understand what this was. Only in his dreams did he ever feel like this, but this wasn't a dream. Whatever it was, he knew it was real, as impossible and abnormal as this state was.

However, something else plagued him. He had the vague, uneasy realization that something within him was changing. The longer he stayed here, the more it seemed to alter his faded form. He didn't like it. Somewhere, as if by instinct, he knew he could fight; he could writhe and twist and refuse, and it would have weakened its grasp, but he didn't have the energy left in the core of his being to resist it. What little was left of his body would not cooperate under what willpower he had left to command.

Then, the strange feeling that came with being changed on a base level shifted within him, and it steadily faded away. In its absence, however, it had left him different than before. Though he couldn't tell in what way it had altered him, he knew he couldn't remove whatever stained him so far down inside, as much as he wished in his faded state that it could be undone. Whatever happened, he knew he disliked it; he disliked it intensely. He didn't want to be changed. He didn't want to be helpless like this. He didn't want to be lost in this world any longer.

But, he had no choice. He was cursed to stay suspended in this realm consumed of emptiness, with his body still distorted beyond the physical realm. Gradually, with time, his inner strength returned and he began to grow restless. How long had it been? It felt like days, yet those days also seemed to pass in mere minutes. Time couldn't be felt here, it seemed. Whatever sense he had of it before was worthless to him now.

Then, his physical senses returned to him in an instant. His body rematerialized in mere seconds, snapping his mind back to the real world in a daze. He longer felt weightless, instead, he felt heavy, and sore. Replacing the abyss of nothingness was the feeling of earth underneath his stiff body. All around him, multiple stimuli bombarded him, but the rush of sensation was too much for anything specific to register at once.

Khida's eyes flew open. Before him was the same clearing where he had had his skirmish with the quilava an unknown amount of time ago. He jumped quickly to his feet and looked around frantically. He was surrounded by the forms of other creatures, one of which was the human girl from earlier. The group had him trapped in the center of a circular formation, each one watching him with observant eyes. In that moment, Khida's instincts rose in an overpowering surge of instruction.

In the matter of a split-second, Khida found the biggest gap between them and launched himself forward heedless of his recovering body. The pokemon on his left side, the quilava from eariler, tried to block his path. However as if surprised by his dramatically improved condition since the finale of their battle, he easily twisted past her and broke through their circular barrier. He heard a hiss escape behind him, presumably from the fire pokemon he dodged, but Khida dismissed any notion of facing the quilava or her companions ever again. Not if he had any say in it. He'd had quite enough to do with them by now.

Not slowing a single beat, the eevee disappeared behind the line of trees at the clearing's edge. He rushed past trunk after trunk in a hurried blur of motion. The small limbs of the underbrush scraped roughly over his face and torso as he moved, but he scarcely felt them. He easily pushed through their much smaller mass, but in this part of the forest, which was admittedly denser, he wound up with numerous scratches as a price to his haste. They were given to him mainly courtesy of the thorn fruit branches scattered over his path, which dug past the less-dense areas of his fur and into his skin, especially on his legs. But, somehow, he managed to avoid the bulk of them and not to get tangled, nor stumble and collide with the ground as he ran onward.

He came at least half a mile away from the site of his reappearance to the physical world, and only then did he stop. His shoulder and back were hurting badly at this point, but he was able to block most of it out, at least for now. Those two specific parts of his body still felt especially weak and crippling, but Khida had recovered a good deal during his immaterial experience, which he still couldn't reason.

He wanted to just let himself fall into a limp, or sit there for a good hour or so, but he tried to stay strong. He couldn't rest just yet. There'd be time for that later. Either way, a few seconds break wouldn't hurt. At the very least, he could take the time to catch his breath.

As Khida settled back on his haunches, he rubbed his nose with his right paw, still breathing heavily. A cut lingered on the tip of his nose, which was quite bothersome to the forest pokemon. Only a few droplets of blood seeped from its length, thankfully, but the shallow graze was still highly irritating. Adding emphasis to that sentiment, Khida bucked backward in a small sneezed, which he blamed on the obvious.

"Bleh." He mouthed.

He sat there in silence for only a few short moments more, getting his breathing under proper control and mentally preparing himself for the next leg of his flight. Before long, he knew he had to start moving again. He suspected the other pokemon would be following him soon. Even if they weren't, it was better to have disappeared anyway. Perhaps, he could throw his scent? Wait... did any of the pokemon that were there with the human have to ability to follow such a faint trail as his? His own species wasn't proficient at tracking, but then, some species were...

He now regretted not taking a good look at the other pokemon with the girl. But at the time, he had to get away as soon as the chance had opened up. If he had waited any longer, he might not have made it this far. He just had to play it out from here.

He rubbed his nose again with the back of same paw as he thought about his next course of action. ...There was a stream nearby, he recalled. He could run part of the length of his trip upriver. There was one simple, useful fact he picked up somewhere along the line; a scent trail cannot be followed through water. It'd pick back up on the other shore, of course, but it was a lot better than nothing.

Now... where could he hide? Perhaps he could make his way to the other side of his territory. They may not follow him that far, at least he hoped they wouldn't... Then, there was always Vine Cove. The idea sounded like the best course of action he could hope to find. The ground was virtually destroyed by the sheer amount of twisted roots of trees and the creeping mesh of vines that twisted it, and transformed it into something much alike an earthen maze, with countless nooks and shallow pathways under the ground that he could take refuge in. That was his best bet to lose them, he was sure.

Khida nodded to himself. That's the plan.

He stretched out his bad leg, then arched his back downward as he tried to loosen his painfully sore muscles. Next he shook his head lightly to clear some of the tension setting into his neck, and ran off without further ritual. He still kept up a fast pace while steadily covering ground, but this leg of his escape, he let himself keep to a more manageable speed, one where he could exercise greater caution and planning, and not just sprint blindly. Plus, it was easier on his leg.

Once or twice, he doubled-backed down his path, running back the way he came a short distance, before veering off in some other direction. He jumped over fallen logs and followed numerous ditches in his path, varying his path greatly the entire way, all the while not sticking once to any appreciably straight line. In that way, he hoped to throw off any would be followers, all the while getting father and farther from where he encountered the human and company.

Khida finally came to the small river he had been keeping an eye out for. He jumped in the shallow surface of water without any hesitation; a spray of water flew up every which way from where his legs had pounded its liquid face and met the stone it concealed underneath. The flowing water seeped past his fur and chilled the skin of his legs, soothing the cuts concealed underneath his pelt. Still, it felt bitter cold. He simply ignored the chill and pushed upstream as fast as he could do without slipping on the smooth river stones, kicking up cascades of water the whole way.

However, something was feeling off. Something strange, foreign, was tugging at his inner self. Somehow, it seemed to be eating at the center of his being, but Khida ignored it as he stepped out onto the bank of the stream once more, now quite a ways upstream from where he entered. He ran back into the cover of the forest, dodging underbrush and various flora standing in his way.

Yet, the dark feeling inside him grew, and his pace slowed bit by bit as it slowly stole away his energy to run. His body grew ever weaker the more distance he put behind him, but he struggled on just to keep up his pace. Khida was determined to run as long as his body was capable of it. However, soon enough he found himself walking, and still pushing himself to his limits in the process. His head hung low, and his breathing had become threateningly shallow meanwhile.

...What was this? True, his shoulder was throbbing harder than ever and protested every step of the way, and his body hadn't fully recovered just yet, but this new, abnormal condition seemed to have nothing to do with any of it. It went beyond sensible exhaustion, for one. His senses were faltering, and his legs started to feel unstable underneath his body... This _definitely_ wasn't normal _at all_. Still, he pushed himself to go on.

Little by little, his strength ebbed away, leaving his body almost unresponsive and weakened beyond use. He still managed to stay on his feet, somehow, but he was padding forward about as fast as one would crawl, his limbs shaking the entire time, and his tail trailing in the dirt behind him. His head hurt badly for the lack of oxygen he couldn't breathe in, as his lungs were likewise failing him. In fact, they were on the verge of ceasing entirely. He had never experienced this sort of thing before, and he was at a complete loss as to how to explain it. It was caused by no wound, no exhaustion, it was as if...

...Had he been poisoned?

Finally, Khida was forced into a full stop, and he simply collapsed where he stood. His eyes drew closed in numb misery. His senses were hazy at best, and he could no longer go any farther. So, he just laid there, not knowing what would come next. The thought of death entered his mind, but he hoped that wouldn't be the case.

The thought of the human and her pokemon once again returned to his head. Had they done this to him? Had they slipped him something? It wouldn't be unreasonable to connect the two... But, that still didn't make sense to him. How could they be responsible for this?

Weakly, he told himself that he should have use the last of his energy to find a place to hide, but he was beyond that point now. He tried to keep a grip of what was around him solely by sound, seeing as his other senses had more or less failed him. But, he heard nothing but the rustling of leaves above under the soft touch of the wind, and his own much too faint heaving of breath.

In and out, his chest rose and fell as his breathing did, more or less, stabilize in time. His tail lied limply behind him, and his legs were sprawled out in a mess. Few thoughts entered Khida's head in his severely weakened state. He felt completely helpless for the lack of strength left in his feeble body. He had a brief sense of time passing, but he cared not to count as minutes ticked by in large number, counting further and further toward some event that would bring to him an inevitable conclusion. He really hoped he wouldn't die like this...

After time, like a weight slowly lifting off his body that had previously been choking off his life energy itself, some sense of himself gradually returned as time passed. His breathing strengthened, and while he still could not bring himself to stand, his condition seemed to be improving, if only by some small amount.

Then, there came a disturbance from near by. It was the movement of some pokemon pushing through the underbrush. It quickly approached his fallen body, and stopped a short distance away. He was still unable to move, so he could do nothing but let it come as close as it wished.

"I finally found you!" Some unfamiliar voice exclaimed.

He could barely sort out the words through the fogged state of mind he was under, but he managed to understand what it was saying. With his remaining senses, he gathered that the other pokemon was now circling around him.

"...You ran off so fast... It really surprised us." It said, coming to a stop in front of him.

Khida tried to open his eyes, but he succeeded only to do so in a small amount. His vision came to him blurred and overly bright, but he saw a lone brown form before him. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like another eevee. Not only that, it finally set in his mind that the voice belonged to a female.

"...Once your caught, it really is useless to run, sorry to say..." She apologized to him. "You should be fine soon enough though..."

Khida tried to speak, but his body was still to weak to do so, and only a small rumble sounded in his throat. The words had died before they could have been said, so he continued to just lay there.

"It's a good thing that you didn't wander off too far... If you had gone much further..." She stopped, not knowing how to continue. "...I'm glad that's not the case, anyway."

From then on, she fell into silence. Though, she shifted and moved around a decent bit while at his side, appearing rather restless from what he could tell. She seemed to have decided it best to leave him be in his current condition, apparently waiting for him to come out of it before saying what was on her mind. But, Khida honestly didn't know if he would come out of it.

In the background, he thought he heard some sort of buzzing, but the sound quickly faded away as if it was never there to begin with. Khida found himself doubting it was ever there in the first place. But then, he thought he also heard the pokemon beside him stir as it came and went, as if she heard it too.

As time passed, strength had begun to trickle back into his body. Feeling likewise returned to his limbs, and his senses had thankfully started to clear and returned to some shade of their former sharpness. But, as a curse that came with his returning sense of his body, it also ached once again, if not worse so.

Still, it was an improvement; he was far from being in good condition, but it was a start. He tried to heave himself off his side, the first time failing, but he managed to find a better position on his second attempt. He opened his eyes more fully, and saw the shining eyes of what was indeed another eevee across from him. Her faint scent hung in the air, bearing some similarity with that of the forest; the two almost seemed to compliment one another. He had to admit it was pleasant, though it was likely because she was the only other one of his species that he could recall encountering. He got the feeling she was with the human however, and that was quite enough of a deterrent to kill whatever pleasantry her presence could have offered.

"...Why do I... f-feel like this...?" He finally managed, having to concentrate on forming each word properly.

"You ran too far away from your trainer... You see, after you're caught, you usually can't stray too far from your pokeball. Otherwise, well..."

She seemed to be hinting that the result was the same crushing weakness he had been feeling. He didn't recognize that word she used though, nor did he attach any sort of meaning to it. ...This trainer of hers held some sort of key that kept him from being able to run, was that it? That much seemed implied, but what was it exactly?

"...What's a poke... -whatever?"

"Pokeball." She corrected him. "It's a device humans use to catch pokemon."

"What your feeling now," she continued, "is the sickness that comes from being separated from the pokeball Sarah used to catch you after your fight with Scarlet. Seeing as your recovering even now, as we speak, Darius must have found Sarah and is leading her this way."

...Several names he didn't recognize. But, he could grasp that the human was coming. A strong urgency to escape once again rose inside him, driving Khida to attempt standing up, but his legs wouldn't support him. It was painful just to move, but what else could he do, sit by and let her come? In the end though, he could do nothing, so he just sat there dejectedly.

"My name is Neni by the way..." She started, trying to lighten the mood.

Like he cared.

"And as I've probably mentioned, my trainer's name is Sarah."

"The human girl..." He breathed out darkly, vaguely remembering her.

"Yeah, she's from a long ways from here, from the human city called Cannon Port, on the other side of the continent. She's been traveling for quite awhile now, longer than I've been with her, definitely."

The human was from some far off land, Khida grasped that fact, but even that was bordering on useless knowledge to him; the specifics were just more so. He was rapidly losing interest in what she had to say.

Again, he tried to stand, and found that this time, his legs could support his weight... barely, but it helped ease his feeling of helplessness just a little bit. The urge to bolt once again came to him, despite the simple logic that would have readily outlawed that option. He doubted he could make it very far at all like this, and now, he had this other eevee to worry about.

"...There's not much point in running. Both me and Darius would be able catch you pretty easily like you are now." She added uncomfortably.

Khida grunted, frustrated with his own body. A frown lied heavily on his face, only vaguely doing his dark mood justice.

"By the way... What's your name?"

She had asked this while tilting her head to the side in a rather innocent gesture, her ears twitching in curiosity. All Khida did was look at her mutely.

He grunted bad-temperedly. He really didn't want her to know. He couldn't say why, but he knew he didn't want to.

A slightly anxious look crossed the other eevee's face after soliciting no response.

"Well, Sarah's probably gonna give you a new name anyway... That's what all trainers do to their pokemon. Some still go by their first name when talking amongst themselves, but to the trainer..."

She paused as if thinking, Khida now glaring at her.

"My name wasn't always Neni, but that's what I go by now. Even around Darius, Lin, and Scarlet. Their names weren't always like that, either."

"My name is Khida." He growled angrily, heavily stressing that fact.

Like some human was going to try to take that away from him, that was absurd! Yet, she... Neni, was it? She had willingly accepted having her name taken away. How could she not care?

However, in contrast to his bad mood, Neni seemed rather excited after getting the name she had wanted from him.

"So... Khida it is then! I like it. If you prefer that name, then that's what I'll call you, even if Sarah chooses another one for you. All that really matters is that you can understand who she's talking to when she's giving commands, so, it's no big deal if you don't go by your human's given name." She gave him a warm smile. "If you like, I should be able to get the others to call you Khida, too."

Again, she was getting on his nerves, but he couldn't really place why. Maybe he just decided to dislike her for Sarah's sake. Bleh. He was in a mess of things. All he wanted was just to have things the way they were before, and not have to worry about these disruptive creatures forcing themselves into his life. It wasn't much to ask. At least, it didn't seem like it.

He looked back at Neni's face. She was smiling happily, a certain cheerfulness written clearly all over her face. She also seemed to be mouthing his name again to herself, followed it with a giggle. Why was she so happy? He didn't understand her at all.

Soon afterwards, a general change carried on the air. Neni shifted, and her ears began to twitch and she turned towards the direction she had come. Khida also picked up the change, as he repositioned himself so he could have a view of the same area of the forest she was watching. With an unhappy feeling rising inside him, he realized something big was coming, or maybe a group of some sort. He felt like cursing under his breath, but he restrained himself out of some sense of courtesy; definitely not to Neni, but just on common principle.

Surely enough, the group did come. First a green and red dragonfly appeared, then the fire pokemon from earlier that day, and finally, the human girl named Sarah, along with a two-legged doglike pokemon trailing directly behind her.

Sarah took in the sight before her, and instantly, she smiled. Her mission to find her new prospect was now over apparently. She barked excitedly with her arms raised victoriously in the air, even giving a little jump with her surge of energy. Meanwhile, the dragonfly pokemon buzzed above her head in strange geometric formations. The blue doglike pokemon behind the girl gave no start at Khida, and just stared at him from where she was, seeming to evaluate him from a far with an indiscernible look on her face. The quilava, who intentionally kept her distance, simply glared at him from afar. He could still see crimson wounds on her face and front leg. It was plain as day she wasn't happy to see him. That was perfectly fine; Khida wasn't happy to see her either.

The human girl then turned to the yanmega above her head, and gave him some command Khida couldn't hope to understand. What was with her tongue, couldn't she speak normally? It occurred to him that, maybe, humans used a different language. That'd be the only sensible explanation. This wasn't going to be fun... He sighed to himself. No, that didn't sum it up accurately; this was going to be downright miserable. What, did he offend a legendary somewhere in his life?

The yanmega disappeared, and the human was now staring in Khida's direction. He felt it; being closer than before to the human helped return to him his lost energy, just as Neni had said. As much as he hated it, he have to stick around the human girl set on being his trainer, unless he wanted to have another brush with... whatever that was. At least, he'd have to go along with her until he found a way to properly separate himself from whatever device held him hostage. That, might take time to plan.

A moment later, the yanmega reappeared, and the human gave some kind of signal with her long, slender arms. The group stirred and began padding in the direction indicated.

"Time to go." Neni spoke to him while bringing herself to stand on all four paws. "She just sent Darius to find a place to spend the night, though, it shouldn't be far. By the look of the sun, we won't have much more time before nightfall anyway."

She flashed him a smile, but he ignored it completely. However, she was right, it did feel like night was only an hour or so away. So, reluctantly giving in, he tried to follow the group, all the while with a disgruntled look clearly written on his face that he couldn't seem to wipe away. Walking wasn't easy, though. While his body was feeling relatively normal now, except for his shoulder of course, he still felt like his energy was remarkably low both physically and spiritually, leaving him with little but willpower to push himself forward.

Apparently concerned about his condition, which went beyond the simple weariness she had expected, Neni padded over close to his side.

"Need help? I could lend you my shoulder if it-"

"Get away from me." Khida interrupted her sharply. "I don't need your help."

Her ears lowered at his harsh words, but she simply half-nodded to him and gave him his space. Yet, she stayed nearby, watching him to make sure he could walk properly enough, which got on Khida's nerves even more. He could manage alright, if he moved slowly. The group around him seemed obliged to walk at just such a pace, but he didn't think it was entirely on his own account, but maybe it was. He looked at the five beings around him, and he could tell they were tired as well, going by the way they moved, but they looked no where near the threshold he felt himself at.

After awhile, they made it into yet another clearing, this one with several large rocks scattered about, and a patch or two of dirt in the center. Some distance off, a huge mossy log rested at the edge of the treeline. The quilava had eyed him almost the entire way here, which had been somewhat unnerving to say the least. Otherwise, they had pretty much walked in silence, with Neni still glancing back at him from a distance.

The human made her way to one of the patches of earth, and threw a mass of thread-skin previously slung over her shoulder down on the outer ridge of the dirt. She seemed to be set at digging in the center, ridding it of lingering fronds of grass and things of the like. Her pokemon loosely surrounded her, indirectly pressuring Khida to step away from the edge of the forest and nearer their new campsite by principle of inclusion, which he let himself be dragged along by for the time being. The human called out a few short commands over her shoulder, and the riolu, yanmega, and quilava disappeared into the forest, as if sent away for some reason. Neni remained nearby, and the human turned to her specifically with a different command. Neni nodded, as if somehow understanding Sarah's strange tongue.

"...This is where we're going to be staying tonight." She smiled hesitantly at Khida.

"No." Khida returned simply; dispute was futile, he knew that, yet it still came out.

"Well... I think she'd be fine if you slept in the forest tonight, but, only if I tag along."

She paused for a second, trying to think of how to state the reason properly, without coming across as intrusive.

"See, she doesn't want you running off again." She added with a cautious smirk.

Neni had an good-natured look on her face as she waited patiently for his reaction. Understandably, he wasn't happy with that idea, but his will to fight them at every turn was beginning to weaken. That's about as good as it would get, he supposed. He sat on his haunches and looked down at the ground thoughtfully. He was just going to have to deal with it. So... he could sleep in the forest, so long as he didn't wander too far... In which case, things may seem, if only a small amount, like they were before he was abducted. He supposed that'd be dumb to pass up, bearing in mind that this was his last chance for and opportunity like that; at least, until he rid himself of them, if such a thing was possible.

And so, he gave in some measure. He did in fact wander off into the forest after that, with Neni tagging along with him, but before that he stayed at camp long enough to see the other pokemon bringing back dead branches and various other materials, which the quilava set fire to after it was gathered into a heap in the small pit the human had dug. This was a strange bunch; an annoying, intrusively-strange bunch that he didn't want to be around. At least having only one of them around was less aggravating, he concluded. Neni's mere presence still constantly wore on his nerves, but he tried to just accept it.

After ensuring time after time that he wouldn't try to escape again, and after he actually seemed to mean it, Neni even left him alone entirely, which Khida was thankful for. Apparently, her trainer didn't command her to stay by his side after all, but simply ensure that he wouldn't run off as he did before. With the lack of other creatures, pokemon and human alike forcing themselves on him, Khida's will had begun to recover. Things felt a little more like how they should have been, before all of that day's events had transpired. But, things really weren't the same. They would never be. He was bound to a trainer, and he hated it, but he was left with no choice but to accept it.

Khida exhaled in frustration. What could he do about this? Nothing came to mind.

His body was tired and sore. Between being drained following his failed escape and his earlier battle, it was still difficult for him to simply stand, but for once, he felt he could rest in relative peace; at least, until morning. Then, he'd be forced to leave the forest behind.

Sunset was already well on its way, and soon the forest would be cast in darkness around him. He filled his time with wandering the area at his own leisure, careful not to fall into the same mistake of traveling too far away from where he knew the human would be. He came across a patch of berries in his wandering, and only then did he realize he was starving. After stuffing himself as much as he could comfortably do on an unsettled stomach, he continued wandering. No real purpose was to be found.

Khida finally came to a stop when he came across a rather breathtaking vantage point over the forest. There, he sat on his hind legs and watched the sun set over the horizon without breathing a word. The vivid colors of the clouded sky and the ocean of leaves below mixed together so naturally, and created such a beautiful and flawless effect to behold. This was the forest he had lived in for so long, and it was the only place he had to call his own. He knew in the core of his soul that he would miss it dearly.

Soon, the sun disappeared and Khida was left in darkness. The wind picked up and lightly buffeted his fur with its rough, airy touch. It was almost symbolic, he thought, how he was left forsaken and alone to the cold shadows around him. The sun's soft light had passed him by, seemingly without a care for the disgraced eevee. Motionlessly, he just sat there, his eyes locked on where the sun had disappeared, and he felt like crying.

Yet, no tears came.

He had wished that everything was nothing more than a bad dream, but he never did wake up.

After all, here he was, wandering the forest on the day he dreaded, following after the human that had taken away his freedom. That night was now behind him, but he could still remember the feeling, for it found a special niche in his heart and ingrained itself fully. That night, had become just another memory he held on to, for soon it would be just another remnant of his lost home.

* * *

**Thus ends the first encounter; note how it took 4 chapters to move on from. x-x**

**Still, I'm happy to see that it's not all gloomish gloom. I'm glad I made Neni as optimistic as she is. xD  
**


	5. The New Arrival, AGT Chapter 5

**19 Feb 2012  
**

**Shorter chapter.** **Hoping to throw in some short ones now and then, especially after what-have-you wraps up from previous minor arcs and junk.**

**Still revising small bits and pieces.  
**

* * *

The group had been padding along in silence for quite some time now. Every time Neni had looked over her shoulder, Khida had his head hung low, his ears were lowered, and his gaze followed the ground. He seemed to be just dragging himself along; while he did manage to keep a rather normal gait, it somehow came off as almost painful.

He seemed so forlorn and zoned out, she thought to herself. She was honestly concerned about him, but she felt helpless to do anything. She couldn't approach him without making him angry, yet he looked downhearted when she didn't. She wanted to make things better for him, somehow, but what could she do? She was at a complete loss; he couldn't understand him enough to know what to do. The promise of a family had been enough for her back when she had met Sarah, but Khida wanted no part of that. She tried to include him, but that simple yet sad sentiment of keeping to himself was keeping him from even giving it a chance, it seems.

Still, she promised herself she would try, again and again until it was clear nothing would ever come of it, or until he finally started to open up and let them in. Again, like so many times before, she cast her gaze back over her shoulder at Khida, who was striding along some ways behind her. What could she do about him? There had to be some way she could earn his trust... or if nothing else, find a way of being on good terms with the other eevee. She didn't want things to be bad between them if she could do something about it. There had to be something she could do.

* * *

Lin marched forward at a steady pace. She stayed close to the human she had entrusted herself to, always there if Sarah needed her. They had been walking for a few hours now, but it didn't even come close to putting a dent in the small pokemon's endurance, even if she had to expend more energy than any other pokemon in the group in order to keep up on her small legs. That was, except maybe Darius, who had to ceaselessly beat his wings in order to keep himself airborne, all the while restraining himself to what would be a very slow pace for him.

Though she tried to give no indication of it, Lin was very curious of the new recruit Sarah took on. He was a rather bad tempered eevee it seemed, at least, outwardly; however, she suspected it was due to his wild spirit, which Lin had to admire, actually. Even when he was wounded and still recovering, he pushed himself to his limit without hesitation. Outside of fighting-element pokemon, like herself, that was a rarity.

Even now, he was pushing himself to go on. He tried to hide it, but he was only halfway able to put weight on his bad leg, but through some strength of will he was able to hide it from the others. However, Lin found that she was gifted at sizing up pokemon, and she could tell how he still favored one front leg over the other. He moved with about the same gait, sure, but his weight balance was off and his body looked overly tense.

Again, she found that she was quite curious about the male eevee. He kept the rest of himself hidden too, just like his pain, but that made Lin even more interested in learning about him. She hoped his will and resolve wouldn't be lost after all this. Sure, she didn't want him to be rebelling against Sarah, or the rest of them... But she didn't want him to simply give up either. She hated it when pokemon did that.

A soft, lighthearted tune played in her head. ...Things were going to be interesting, seeing what happens with the new arrival. Maybe she'd have a new sparring partner, even. Well, she could hope.

* * *

Sarah and the group eventually slowed to a stop, and she declared in her human tongue something to the effect of this being a good enough place to rest for awhile. At least, that was what Khida was left to assume. He didn't try to understand her at this point. Still, he was glad for the break really, but he wasn't willing to give any sign of preference. He purposely kept his facial expression completely blank and barely even looked in the other pokemon's direction as he chose a place to lie down, far away from the others. Finding just such a place, he curled up and laid his head softly on his paws. The grass was lush here, and it felt admittedly comfortable underneath his tired body, especially after having to walk for a hours on end.

His eyes drew closed as he exhaled heavily; he didn't feel like sleeping just yet, he just wanted to shut out the world for a moment. He had been dragged quite far from his home by now, and it weighed on his heart, but there was nothing he could do about that. He couldn't stop the thoughts that returned in endless number of his home. With them, there was the reoccuring idea of running back the way they came, but things of that nature had no current merit.

He let out another heavy sigh. It was like a disease; he knew it couldn't be as simple as that, but his heart still lead him to rethink the same course of action over and over again, and it was getting depressing. Instead, he tried to steer his mind back to the forest he had known, to the place he belonged, and to the countless old haunts of his.

It hurt, being away from it, and being helpless to do anything about it; all his physical strength had failed to protect it from being taken from him. He had been too weak, but then how could he have hoped to overpower a pokemon wielding an elemental affinity of such a high caliber, when he had never encountered anything of the sort before? It still felt like a failure on his part, though.

He could hear the others shifting around and talking, but he tried to put them out of his mind completely. He half wanted to hate them, for everything, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to hate them after all, he just didn't like what they had done.

* * *

After the group came to a stop and settled in to relax, Neni glanced over at where Khida was lying some distance away from the rest of them. As usual, he seemed to be sulking and keeping well to himself. She had to admit, she felt bad for him. Sure, he kept to his rather bad temper, but that couldn't be the way he always acted. If she somehow made it past this barrier of his, she'd likely see how he really was.

Neni thought about it more, lowering her head onto her paws as she laid down beside Sarah. She turned over what she could do in her head; she could always try talking to him again... but, he tended to resent that, so maybe now wasn't the time. Besides, she had no clue what she could say to him now.

Then, another thought came to her mind. She could give him something; something universally liked by all pokemon. It would be a small act of course, but it would be something. Complementing the thought that she had come to, Neni's stomach growled quietly in chorus to her growing hunger. She was sure Khida felt the same way; after all, she hadn't seen him eat at all since dawn. Not to mention, he wasn't likely used to walking for hours on end like this without being able to browse for food on the way.

She was sure she could find something in the forest to bring back to him, if nothing else than as a peace offering. After all, on their trek through the woods she had seen quite a few trees and berry bushes that would do perfectly. If she looked around, she was sure she could find something before they started out again.

Now committed to the idea, Neni rose to her paws once again.

"I'll be back soon." She said to Lin, who was the only a short distance away before padding off.

"Okay." Lin returned simply, not trying to guess where she was headed, but watching her go all the same with an innocent expression.

* * *

After wandering the nearby forest for awhile, keeping an eye out for any fruit or berries the entire way, her search was finally rewarded. Neni came across the large trunk of an aged apple tree, its twisted bark bearing the sign of decades of life. Yet, its age only seemed to make it more lively than it would have been in its youth; its earthen body rose proudly from the ground it was rooted to and spread out in an array of rich emerald color above her head. And, just as she hoped, it bared a massive amount of ripe apples on its leafy branches.

Neni eyed the tempting red spheres hanging from it. She faintly remembered the delicious taste of the fruit, which rivaled even the greatest of berries, she remarked. However, being the small pokemon that she was, and one that can't climb trees at that, she would have a hard time getting one. She frowned, but told herself that she would not be defeated.

She chose the apple hanging closest to the ground as her target, though it was still pretty far up from her perspective. She positioned herself beneath the fruit and readied her legs underneath her, setting them like a coiled spring before pushing off up into the air in a powerful jump. However, her muzzle still came at least a few inches short of their intended mark. Thinking she might not have gotten enough power behind her jump, she readied herself and tried again, only to come to the same result. After landing empty mouthed on the ground for the second time, she returned her gaze to the object of her attention with a puzzled frown on her face.

Another came to mind. She readied herself once again, and jumped up at the trunk of the tree instead. She then pushed off of the trunk, using the force to bring her closer to the fruit above in turn. Unfortunately, as she landed, she again came away with nothing to show for her effort. However, she had come respectably closer that time; she could get it, she realized, she just had to do it right. _Next time_, she told herself with determination as she readied herself for another go.

She repeated the same tactic, coming only about half an inch short this time, but still landing empty mouthed. She simply shook herself off and tensed her legs for yet another try. Gradually, each attempt brought her a little closer, until about the seventh attempt, where she felt she felt she had executed it as perfectly as she could hope for. Her fangs closed around the fruit's tender flesh, and Neni landed gracefully on the ground with her prize in her jaws.

She set it down for a moment before taking a better grip on it and starting back in the direction of the group. Neni sung a happy little note in her head in response to her own success. She was quite pleased, she just hoped Khida would be when the time comes, too.

* * *

She returned with the ruby fruit clenched firmly between her jaws. The sweet juice seeped into her mouth from where her sharp fangs pierced through its thin red skin. Her mouth was almost watering with the taste that tempted her to bite down harder into the fruit's delicious flesh, but she reminded herself that it wasn't for her.

Far from the others, seeming to not have moved even an inch while she was away, was Khida. He was lying on his side, just as she had last seen him; she couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep at this point, as she couldn't make out his face from her angle. Silently, she padded over to his side and set the large apple in front of him. He stirred, and sat halfway up with her approach. His eyes seemed distant, and instead of the bad temper she had started to expect, he just seemed to be quite out of it. His mind looked hazed over with some distant thing that separated him from the real world, though with her approach, his attention seemed to return some amount.

He look at her, and then at the apple with a fittingly blank expression, apparently not understanding what her intention was. She gave him an awkward, but sweet smile, her tail swaying slightly behind her in a friendly motion.

"Here, I thought you'd be hungry..." She said while rolling the fruit forward with her muzzle.

He stared at it with troubled expression playing across his face. He seemed to be turning something over in his head, but at least he seemed back in the real world now. Regardless, after a moment of wordless silence, Neni got the idea that she wouldn't get much a response from him, so she padded back over to join the others in order to gave Khida his space, throwing another awkward smile over her shoulder as she went.

She came to a stop next to Lin and Sarah some distance away, who where relaxing in the partial sunlight with a content look on both their faces. A pleasant calm carried though the cool air, accompanied by a soft breeze that almost smelled of faraway rain, though she couldn't be sure. After lying down on the soft grass herself, she covertly turned to look back at Khida. He was taking a tentative bite out of the ruby fruit she had left for him, and after getting a taste of it, he started digging into it.

Neni tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, an innocent smile on her face; he really had been hungry, it seemed. Neni's stomach growled again, reminding her that she was rather hungry too. However, she tried to ignore it; she'd find more for herself later. Or, she could always dig around for a few berries before they leave. Again she stole a glance in Khida's direction, and happily noted that he didn't seem to be in as dark a mood as before.

* * *

**Yupp, shorter chapters are more fun to revise and edit.**


	6. Disturbance, AGT Chapter 6

**19 Feb 2012**

**"Also, it's been brought up by an observant viewer, that at this point Sarah probably should have been carrying at least a few of her pokemon in their balls. Which, is likely even more the case with this chapter. x-x The way I figure it, for this story I'm gonna have to put the balls to the sole purpose of binding pokemon to a human's control; meaning, their ability to contain pokemon, for AGT, applies mostly to recently caught pokemon (due to fading energy... to be explained some other time, maybe), who are also severely weakened or unconscious.  
Deserves a more detailed explanation, but it really is just a side detail, so now probably isn't the time~ For the story's sake, the point is that pokemon are doomed to roam and follow their trainers almost every step of their journey. xD Poor them.  
Thank you doggiefan for pointing out the flaw in my reasoning. :D**

**Also, this should have been mentioned in an earlier chapter. The pokemon knew it (the storm) was coming, and the human half did too, but they pressed themselves to make the most of what time they had before it set in (with Sarah leading and Khida doubting her guidance, of course); and, well, they ran into a little bad luck of not finding shelter in time, like they (she) expected they could."**

* * *

**Part 2 - Disturbance**

* * *

Thunder tore apart the dark sky above. Each powerful crash echoed overhead with the intensity of an aerial explosion. Sheets of rain pelted the canopy above and poured down over the barrier of leaves and onto the forest floor below. The chilling water seeped into everything underneath the black, stormy heavens, including the wandering band making their way through the forest, counting their own misfortune.

Khida walked on, ignoring the water that soaked his pelt and made his fur cling closely to his body. He wasn't about let some small storm dampen his willpower; in some small manner, he even took comfort in enduring it. It kept his mind off other things, and besides, the others didn't seem to be faring nearly as well, and it was a pleasure to take things in better stride than them.

He looked at the sorry group around him through the haze of the heavy rain. Each seemed to be in their own state of suffering. The human girl had her arms tightly wrapped around her wet body as she shivered uncontrollably. Along side her, Neni's fur looked completely soaked through, and she for once looked on the border of being depressed. He wouldn't go as far to enjoy the sight, but he didn't feel as sorry for her as another pokemon might.

Further away, there was the yanmega and the quilava. Being a fire pokemon, the quilava was abnormally vulnerable to water, so the dragonfly pokemon took up position above her where he could take the brunt of the downpour in her place. He couldn't read his expression, but he could see the fire pokemon's clear as day. That expession, was predictably one of great displeasure. The flame on her back burned low, and wisps of vaporized rain wicked off of her, especially around her paws where the abnormally high amount of heat of her body was completely unable to burn the moisture off her skin quickly enough to keep herself dry.

The blue doglike pokemon, who fell in on the other side of the girl, wore a rather unhappy expression as she trudged along. However, she seemed just as adamant as always in her resolve to press on. One paw after the other, she moved over the wet earth as her short, dense fur clung too closely to her body, just as it did to the others. Looking closer, Khida could tell she was also shivering some small amount, but it was hard to pick up on.

Khida shook his head. They didn't have time to look for shelter when the storm swelled; if they had just stayed put, they wouldn't have had to endure this consequence of nature. Well, that's what they get for entertaining this journey of theirs. Khida frowned. The storm really didn't bother him all that much; sure, he'd rather be warm and dry, but he could push through it without a problem.

Suddenly, Sarah stopped in her tracks before quickly rushed ahead of them. Neni's ears immediately afterward perked up as she turned to face the rest of the group.

"Hey, Sarah found something." She said loudly with newly found confidence, before running off after her trainer.

"Shelter?" The blue dog pokemon chimed in, though Neni was already on her way out of ear shot.

"Finally." The quilava added, her voice somehow sounding about as annoyed as relieved.

The others, including Khida, picked up their pace as they followed Sarah and Neni to investigate. After passing a few rather large trees that blocked their view, a dark form had begun to take shape in the distance. It seemed somehow unnatural to him, like it didn't belong here in the forest, yet there it was. As they came closer, walls of stone and pillars of solid rock took shape. The group slowed once again as they crossed from the forest onto the overgrown shadow of the large structure. Freed from the cover of the forest, Khida also noted the rain was falling harder on the group than before. Grassy cobblestone took the place of the forest floor, which almost felt slippery underpaw.

With each flash of lightning that lit up the darkness for but a fraction of a second, Khida gradually made sense of the form before them piece by piece. It was some sort of construction of stone and wood, that seemed have been erected quite some time ago. Now, it looked like it had fallen into a state of decay. Patches of the wall and roofing were on the verge of caving in completely after its presumed years of abandonment to nature.

Surrounding the main building, partial walls of stone divided island-like sections of land throughout the courtyard, creating beds of risen ground. However, for all their sentiment, only tall weeds sprouted and thrived in their midst. The cobblestone underpaw seemed to lead all around the structure, up to its front entrance, and throughout the divided ground around it. Several young trees sprouted up here and there through the cobblestone, as well as in other places that Khida reasoned they weren't intended to be. What creatures would construct such a place, only to leave it to fall into ruin like this? Was this the work of humans? It seemed like a safe assumption; before Sarah, Khida couldn't remember ever meeting them face to face, yet here was their supposed handiwork, only a day or two's worth of traveling away.

The other pokemon seemed to have taken their fill of sight seeing, as they padded closer to the structure. It was only then that Khida realized Sarah had started to wander in that direction while he was staring at the landscape. Without breathing a word, he followed the others toward their strange find, not catching a mummered comment given by Neni, already some distance ahead.

Sarah stopped at the front entrance, where she banged on the wooden framework that barred them out. She shouted something in her alien tongue, but no response came from within. She then tried to move the door herself, but even after putting all her weight into her attempt at prying it open, she was met with no success. Khida tilted his head, the rain still buffeting him heavily. The framework didn't seem all that strong... Was Sarah really this weak?

Sarah then called over her shoulder to one of the pokemon that gathered around her. The little blue dog-like pokemon stepped forward on command, and simply nodded to her trainer. Sarah stepped to the side as the fighting pokemon walked up to the door, her gaze set intently upon it. The riolu focused her energy for a brief second before slamming her fist into the wooden frame. A heavy crack of splitting wood cried out, though it was dwarfed soon after by the resounding chorus of thunder booming far above.

They took a moment to inspect the damage with the chilling rain still falling over them. Now, there were deep gashes across the door where the wood fractured badly, but somehow it still stayed together enough to keep them out. There was also a rather large space where the riolu's fist had connected, revealing only empty blackness beyond. While the damage was quite respectable, it apparently wasn't enough to open it up. So, Sarah once again took her place in front of the barrier, this time using the shadowed gap as leverage in her attempt to pry the door open. The riolu joined her this time, tugging at it from below to aid her trainer's effort.

With their combined effort, it started to budge, if only a little. Then, as if an unseen lock had suddenly been released that had kept it shut tight against intruders, the door gave way with little to no resistance. Sarah and the dog-like pokemon almost fell over with the unexpected surrender of resistance, a startled expression on their faces, but they both recovered before falling onto the rain-slicked ground.

Tentatively, the girl poked her head into the depths of the structure revealed to them, before crossing the threshold entirely and entering inside and under the protection from the rain. The blue riolu followed closely behind her, being the loyal pokemon that she was. The rest of them soon followed suit, Neni being the next to enter, followed by Khida himself, then the quilava and yanmega.

As they all grouped together beyond the threshold of the door frame, the human girl started talking softly to the group around her in her incomprehensible language. The quilava, now gladly recovering from the rain, became a valuable source of light within their dark source of shelter. The soft illumination revealed quite an expanse of what Khida could assume as human construction indeed.

Neni was nearby, her form visible in the low glow of the quilava's flame. She was shaking off some of the water than soaked her fur, a few droplets of which landed on the quilava nearby, who closed her eyes to the unpleasant moisture accidentally cast in her direction. The yanmega landed on the ground next to the fire pokemon and remained there with the same unreadable expression that bug pokemon often had; he seemed glad to take advantage of the break though, Khida guessed. The riolu simply stood upright beside her master, as always, not allowing herself to be at ease just yet.

Looking around, Khida remarked his strange surroundings. Walls of wood surrounded them, barely touched by the light of the fire pokemon. The high roofing overhead kept the rain off them, which they all counted as a blessing. Door frames adorned the bottoms of the walls, easily matching and exceeding Sarah's height. Each seemed very fitting to a human's size, Khida thought. Some of the doors were shut tight, while others revealed only another expanse of deep shadow beyond them. Wooden pathways of some strange design arced from the floor up to a shadowed overlook above beyond the quilava's light.

The air was slightly warm, Khida had to admit. It was kind of nice, actually; it felt like someone's home, though judging by its condition, it had been no such thing for quite some time. Spinerak webs hung from place to place, completing the abandoned appearance, but the only thing they seemed to be catching was dust. Khida sniffed the air out of habit, but he caught no trace of anything he could recognize; the place smelled strange though, but he assumed that was because he wasn't used to the scents of the human world.

Khida looked around at the drenched pokemon surrounding him. The whole group seemed to be happy to be out of the rain, but still not liking the feeling of wet fur and skin. The human, however, seemed a little brighter now; she even seemed to be able to ignore her wet threadskin completely as she set about surveyed the interior of the room.

The human started barking again to the group, though it sounded almost like she was talking to herself, rather than her pokemon. The other pokemon simply sat idle while listening to her; though, remembering Khida wasn't familiar with her speech, Neni turned to face him.

"She says we're going to wait out the storm here." Neni translated, her ears turned slightly as she continued listening to her trainer. "...And we're going to try to spend the night here. She also says the storm isn't likely to pass over any time soon, so we might as well."

Neni turned back to her trainer, who was motioning with her arm for the others to follow her. The group around her complied, keeping to a loose formation led by the quilava's light, who fell into the middle of the six of them. They wandered through room after room, each looking as decrepit as the last. In their wandering, they passed a multitude of dark, looming forms that cast menacing shadows all about them, but they turned out to be nothing more than wooden contraptions of human design, meant for anything from luxury to some undefinable utility beyond Khida's grasp.

The only sound that could be heard was their own soft footsteps, and the buzz of the yanmega's wings which echoed through the depths of shadow all around them. It made everything feel so empty and lifeless, yet at the same time Khida also found it unsettling. The human seemed to take no notice of it, but the other pokemon seemed a little unnerved as well, if only a little.

"I wonder who used to live here..." Neni whispered under her breath, more to herself than anyone else.

Finally, they came to yet another dark room, however this one had glass panes on one side that provided another look at the storm they had escaped. By the look of it, that part of the wall was designed come away in order to reveal another exit, but that wasn't precisely what they had in mind for tonight. Sarah seemed content with their find; she soon took her bag off her back and set it down on the ground and exhaled loudly, then took a good look at the room around her. The other pokemon gradually surrounded her, then started to explore the room for themselves. The quilava simply settled in the middle for the time being, next to where Sarah stood, not seeming curious in the least. Khida himself wandered around some amount, but he stayed mainly to the center as he took in what he saw around him.

Every now and then, flashes of lightning would turn the numerous glass panes into sheets of pure white, before instantly returning to their darkened state. The boom of thunder was now heavily muffled by the walls around them, but it still could be heard like an underlining heartbeat that coursed through the forest around them. Here, though, it felt cut off; like a little pocket of space completely separate from the forest, untouched by its natural hand.

Khida looked around, but he found the room about as remarkable as any of the other ones. This one seemed abnormally vacant however. He glanced at the walls, and very little human adornments were to be found anywhere, unlike the rooms before it, where they littered the walls and floor. He could see several metallic hooks in some places, on which various rods of wood and leather rested silently, but beyond that they were completely bare. Above, he could see crossbeams and niches of shadow that couldn't be touched by the quilava's light; actually, even with the fire pokemon sitting in the center of the room, her light didn't fully touch the dark corners. It truly was empty, Khida thought.

After ruffling through her bag for a moment, Sarah pulled out some kind of metal device. After only a brief moment she had a small flame started inside of it, and she set it down on the floor before her. It offered only a scarce amount of light, but it did help.

Gradually, the others returned to the center of the room, including Khida, now finished with their survey of their surroundings. Sarah took her bag and walked off to the far side of the room, away from the door they had entered through and maintaining some space between her and the panes of glass shutting out the storm. There, she set about unrolling a mass of threadskin from her bag onto the wooden floor, creating makeshift bedding for the night.

Meanwhile, Khida just sat there, barely stirring from his new place by the odd source of light. Neni, to his left, looked into the faces of those gathered around the source of light Sarah had laid out for them, who happened to be Scarlet and Khida himself, as the yanmega and riolu had wandered off to follow their trainer.

"Well, it beats a storm any day." Neni smiled happily.

"Definitely." The quilava returned, making a face of disgust. She really seemed to hate water, Khida thought, but he was content to keep his thoughts to himself.

"You know, I don't think I've ever been in a place like this... It seems, so..." Neni started.

"Old?" The fire pokemon suggested, sounding rather uninterested.

"I suppose." Neni shrugged. "I seriously do wonder who used to live here though. Do you think it was humans, like Sarah?"

Khida's ear twitched slightly. That didn't feel quite right...

"Had to be, you don't see pokemon building places like this, even if they did leave..." The quilava returned.

Call it a hunch, but Khida thought there had been pokemon here too. Humans, of course, but they weren't alone. ...But, why would he get that impression?

"Why would they leave, though?" Neni tilted her head to the side.

It was probably nothing. Khida dismissed the wandering thoughts and tried to bring his attention back to the pokemon around him. Neni seemed to be over the discomfort of being soaked; Her fur still gathered in wet tufts, but she didn't seem to be faring quite as bad now, he thought.

"Like I know." The quilava answered dismissively. "Humans will be humans."

Neni half smiled at that. "I guess. This is quite the impressive place though, just think what it would be like to have this for a den..."

"You don't need a den when your on the road." The fire pokemon reminded her.

"Yeah... I guess a really wouldn't give that up, even for a place like this." She tilted her head in thought again.

"Either way, this place feels too empty. Who would need this much space?"

Neni shrugged her shoulders. "I like it, personally..."

The female eevee rubbed her paw over her ear.

"All you would need is some more pokemon to make the place come alive again." Neni added, her eyes passing over the empty room.

"As apposed to well, dead?" The quilava asked with a smirk.

Or forgotten, Khida mentally added.

"What is a home but a den waiting for those who belong to it to return?" Neni said with a bright smile.

"Either way," Neni continued with a slightly more serious expression, though still maintaining a lingering smile, "we're staying for the night. Might as well enjoy it while we're here."

It was still just a mysterious and empty dwelling to Khida. In the momentary silence, he simply let his eyes wander over the other pokemon. The quilava stirred a little, then grimaced as she shifted her position. A slightly worried expression came over Neni's face as she caught her friend's reaction. Khida simply looked on with a vaguely curious look on his face from his place beside the two of them.

"...How bad is it?" Neni asked vaguely after the short moment of silence.

"Could be a lot worse I guess, thanks to Darius." The fire pokemon returned, her voice a little softer than before. "I owe the guy one."

"Yeah, water was never any fun for you." She stated half-uneasily.

Khida just looked at her questioningly and tilted his head, not understanding what she meant by that. Noticing the look, Neni turned to him with a kind expression on her face.

"See, fire pokemon like Scarlet here can't take water very-"

The quilava interrupted her with a low, dark rumble in her throat. Neni seemed to want to say more, but she stopped herself where she was. There was a bit of an awkward silence following their exchange, but after only a moment Neni turned back to Khida and gave him a strangely warm smile.

"Well, might as well settle in." She suggested, before padding off to check up on Sarah and the others.

Left alone together, the quilava grunted and gave Khida a rather unfriendly glare before following the female eevee. Khida just dismissed the look and sat in silence. He laid his head down on his paws and relaxed, his face to the caged flame the human had created as he just thought to himself. The storm, finding this place, being tucked away into the darkness... even if he didn't particularly like the group he was now stuck with, he was happy for the distraction that tonight's events had offered him. He almost felt at peace, at least until they headed out again. Right now, he could be content to just stare into the flickering tongue of flame that ate at the metal device's sheltered wick.

From then on, his thoughts wandered to nothing in particular. In silence, he watched the flame dance and flicker inside its cage, as if it had some small life to call its own. Back home, he never found fire in anything but its dangerous form, but here before him, was this delicate remnant of such a destructive force. Replacing the destructive force it held before, now it seemed strangely warm and comforting. It was odd, but he found that he was strangely entranced.

"Hey."

Another pokemon's voice sounded from nearby, interrupting his thoughts. Without stirring, Khida's eyes flicked in the direction of the voice. There, he saw a riolu, who had apparently left her human's side, for once. Her fur was still damp with rainwater, and the distinct smell of wet dog accompanied her presence.

"How are you doing?" She asked him as she sat in front of the flame a short distance away.

"Fine." Khida answered with an uninterested tone. "Rain never really bothered me."

"I see. So... How are you taking to things?" She asked him simply, sounding lightly curious.

"Did you expect it to go over well?" He returned sharply, though minding his tone for sake of how young she sounded to him.

"No." She bluntly answered.

Strange, he didn't expect such a straight answer; regardless, he didn't know how to reply. It didn't really matter to him though, as he was content to let the short exchange fall into silence after that. The riolu just sat in her place without a further word, seeming to be content with the same outcome.

Strangely enough, he didn't mind the company; after all, she really didn't try to interact with him much. She just stared into the flame as if in meditation. Off to the side, the other pokemon were stirring and moving around, but here, the two of them just sat in peaceful silence while the storm beat and crashed outside.

* * *

**"****Khida seems a lot less confrontive, doesn't he? Likely answer: maybe he's now a little burned out and distracted by being soaking wet and such? xP Awell.  
****Anyways. Feel free to leave random thoughts, comment on junk, point out flaws... ect. Or, just continue on your way, naturally. :P**"

**Minor revision and editing~  
**


	7. Disturbance, AGT Chapter 7

**20 Feb 2012**

**More minor revision. Pretty much up to speed now. xD Hurrah. Prepare for more frequent POV shifts, sorry to say.**

* * *

The shadowed chamber was eerily quiet. The soft sound of breathing carried on the air over to where Khida lied on the other side of the room, gently hinting at the human and her pokemon sleeping nearby. Khida had only dozed off for only an hour or so during their stay, still facing the sheltered flame in front of him even in the midst of slumber. Still, he found it hard to remain underneath the waking world in the midst of his dreams. Just as well, he wasn't worried about letting himself just enjoy the peaceful darkness, since he didn't need much sleep to function, unlike the human girl who seemed content to waste the entire night.

The small flame still flickered inside its metallic cage, though with the passage of time it had burned down to only a minute wisp; yet, the faint orange light still drew his mind into it. Around him, occasionally he would hear the other pokemon stir before settling again into relative silence. Sometimes it seemed as though he wasn't the only one evading slumber to be awake in the darkness, but he payed them no mind.

Khida rested his head lightly on his paws and heaved a low sigh. The rain outside had grown much less powerful than it was upon their arrival. Reduced from the heavy downpour and battery of lightning, it had become nothing more than a light drizzle which cascaded intricately down the transparent glass panels in veins of water. Yet, despite the barrier that kept it out, it still served as a reminder of the proud wilderness that laid just beyond the unnatural walls around him. For a moment, he let his thoughts drift away from the darkness and to the home he had loved, though it was a home appreciated only in hindsight. Normally, he'd be hiding in one of his earthen dens carved into ground, silently listening to the storm pass overhead as he stayed warm and dry on a bed of dry grass. There, he could simply wait in comfortable silence, waiting for the fresh reprieve that followed each storm.

Then, he felt the presence of another pokemon approaching him, breaking him away from his thoughts. Khida brought his tail closer around him as he positioned himself upright on his haunches. The other pokemon stepped into the low glow of the flame, stopping on the opposite side of him. Khida blinked twice as he saw there the body of a smaller eevee, her eyes still seeming to catch the light quite well, despite it being so scarce. She calmly sat down across from him, looking at him with something obviously on her mind. Khida simply watched her expectantly, waiting for her to say what she had come to say.

"Hey..." She smiled halfly at him, coming off a little awkward.

Khida just stared at her silently, not bothering with a response.

"Lin's gone." She stated simply then, a light edge of concern in her voice.

"...She probably just wandered off." Khida returned, dismissing its importance.

Neni tilted her head, hesitating to continue. She shifted her paws uncomfortably. She seemed to realize that was likely the case, yet...

"Could you, maybe... Help me look for her?" She nervously asked while looking at him with a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

Khida gave it a moment's thought, though it didn't take him long to come to his conclusion.

"No."

The answer came pretty easily. After all, why would he waste his time on that? Neni seemed somewhat disappointed with his response however.

"...Please?" She tried one last time.

Khida simply gave her a negative look that said he wasn't going to about as effectively as any words could. Neni frowned and glanced off to the side, looking almost sad. Then, she let out a sigh and padded away, likely to search on her own. Khida watched her step out the reach of the small flame, his furred face all the while expressionless. Alone again, the male eevee simply laid back down and rested his head on his paws, drawing his tail around to cover his side.

Once again, he returned to watching the flame flicker and dance, but his mind stayed on Neni and Lin's departure. First the riolu wandered off, then Neni... He shrugged. It wasn't any of his concern, really. Frowning, he tried to just put them out of his mind. However, just laying there in front of the small fire, he couldn't stop his thoughts from wandering back to the two missing pokemon.

Khida readjusted his position in order to look over at the corner of the room where the human was resting. From where he was lying, he watched the barely visible human's chest rise and fall with each breath as she slept soundly. Beside the girl were the forms of two other pokemon under the same hold of quiet slumber. He assumed that if he moved closer, he would find Darius and the quilava there. At their master's side, as always. ...It seemed that the fire pokemon's flame disappears when it falls asleep, Khida observed vacantly.

He sighed, only half realizing what he was about to do. He rose to his paws and stretched out his legs before looking at the doorframe through which they entered the room hours ago, and through which Neni and Lin had presumably left. He walked towards its dark form silently, leaving the light of the flame behind him.

Khida stepped underneath the frame and into the dark maze of the structure beyond. Quite thankfully, his well endowed sense of vision allowed him to make out the rough shapes and forms of obstacles in his way, giving him the ability to navigate in the darkness around him. However, he had to concentrate much harder than had to outdoors, where the light of the gleaming stars and the silver moon lent an ever present mimicry of the sun's light. Here, there was no notable source light at all, but the blackness wasn't yet so absolute that Khida couldn't find his way around. Though, he couldn't make much sense of the objects in his way, beyond that they were there, but he doubted he would be able to make sense of the human creations anyway.

Khida looked around at the faint shadows that twisted all around him. He strained his ears to catch any sign of another pokemon, but he couldn't pick up any trace foretelling anything else lurking about. So, he simply padded onward over the wooden floor underpaw, passing from room to room in patient succession. Each time he crossed into another chamber, he stopped for a brief moment to make sense of his new surroundings; all the while, he kept his eyes open and ears alert for any sign of Lin, or Neni.

As he walked on, he had begun to wonder exactly why he was wandering through the darkness like this. Was it for them? He growled inwardly at the idea. He really didn't want to help them, yet here he was, and he didn't know why. Maybe he was just bored... but that didn't really seem the case. It could have been that it just seemed more interesting at the time than lying around complacently all too close to the human. He actually _did_ like the through of getting away from her for the time being. Still, it was hard to say. Regardless, he was here, but he reminded himself he really didn't care about the well being of the others.

He sniffed the air half-consciously. He caught Neni's scent, which hung faintly in the air. She was either nearby, or she has recently passed through here; he couldn't tell, but both amounted to about the same thing. He padded onward through the darkness, crossing through yet another set of rooms before stopping to sniff the air again. This time, Neni's scent wasn't to be found, but another scent carried in the air. However he was unable to identify it, as it was heavily faded at best. So, he continued his search, simply wandering in random directions at that point, all the while trying to keep a mental note of how to find his way back.

Then, he almost collided with a dark form as he crossed into another dark room. He stopped immediately and almost jumped backwards in surprise, the other creature no better off. However, after their brief encounter, it soon became obvious who the other was. Carried on the air was the trace of a female eevee, so by scent, not sight, he knew he had almost ran into Neni. The other pokemon seemed to realize who she was face to face with as well.

"...Khida? What are you doing here?" She asked, clearly surprised to see him roaming around.

Having asked that, Neni then calmly sat back, drawing her tail over her front paws; it was then that Khida realized he could still discern her outline through the darkness. Thinking about her question, Khida shifted awkwardly when he couldn't come up with a solid answer for her.

"I felt like exploring..."

...It wasn't the best answer, but it was pretty much the only response he could give.

"Did you find Lin?" he asked, changing the subject.

"No..." She sighed. "I can't find her anywhere."

Khida's ears twitched. She really disappeared, didn't she? But then, it was understandably hard to find her in a twisted place like this.

"Maybe she went back to Sarah?" She asked, more to herself than anything.

His ears lowered at the thought of returning to the human, but Neni seemed to miss his reaction due to the darkness. It was more likely they would find her there than anywhere else, Khida had to admit, but he wasn't exactly fond of the idea. But, regardless that seemed to be the next course of action.

"Now, I think it was this way..." Neni mumbled to herself, looking off to the side right before getting up and walking away.

Khida silently followed her lead, keeping a distance between them the entire time. Ahead of him, he could make out little beyond Neni's small, wandering body and her large tail that swayed with every step she took. While he had navigated through most of this side of the house already, he couldn't quite discern where he was anymore. He hoped she hadn't managed to get them lost. Well... Neni had taken a different route here, he thought to himself, so maybe not.

They walked at a slow pace the entire way, as they had to be careful to avoid colliding with the hazy objects in their path, objects which ominously loomed over them at every turn. Khida's eyes were constantly searching through the dense shadow surrounding the two of them, but he wasn't able to discern even half of the forms his gaze caught. However, the farther they walked, the more familiar things became, if only in feel; the scenery on the other hand, he didn't recognize before, and he didn't now.

Following Neni through the doorframe, the two eevees came to the room they had started out from. In the air was the faint sound of sleeping pokemon and Neni's master, Sarah. Since they left, neither of the three had stirred, at least from what Khida could tell.

The two of them both scanned the room for any sign of Lin. And, just beyond the dismal light of the caged flame... there she was. The blue doglike pokemon was just sitting there with her legs crossed, staring into the flame with a troubled look on her face. Neni quickly padded over to her friend, and Khida followed behind Neni, albeit more slowly.

"Lin, where have you been?" Neni asked as she came to the riolu's side.

The doglike pokemon suddenly turned her head up to look at her, momentary surprise replacing her troubled expression. However, it disappeared all together in an instant. Lin slowly brought herself to stand back up on her hind legs and face Neni properly.

"I... went for a walk. No big deal really." She rubbed the back of her head nervously with her paw, her eyes on the floor.

Khida knew something was off, judging by how she was acting; she seemed to be concealing something, but what?

"We both know you're not good at hiding things when they're bothering you, Lin... what happened?" Neni pursued as if suspecting the same, being obviously concerned.

"I-It's nothing." She returned, forcing herself to look Neni in the eyes. "Nothing happened."

Despite her trying to hide it, something in her eyes was still off. And, after only a moment of the following silence, Lin seemed know she wouldn't be able to just let it slide. So, she gave in.

"...I heard a voice." She said quietly, her head lowered.

Confused, Neni tilted her head with a small frown. Khida just stared curiously at the blue dog pokemon's face.

"A voice... From where?" Neni pursued, casting a brief glance over at the sleeping forms only a short distance away, before returning her eyes to Lin.

"It was nothing, really." She answered. "Besides, I couldn't find whatever made it."

"...Well, there could be another pokemon here. After all we're probably not the only ones taking shelter from the storm." Neni added, a measure of relief replacing most of her concern.

Neni seemed content with that as an answer, but Lin still looked doubtful. Khida found he was curious about this fact, which the female eevee at his side seemed to be overlooking for the time being, or didn't think much of. There had to be a reason Lin looked so doubtful, but then, maybe she _was_ hearing things. If not, she apparently doubted the safety of having other pokemon lurking in the shadows. Or, was there more to it than that?

"Anyway... It's no big deal, okay?" Neni said optimistically, following up with a quick, reassuring lick to Lin's forehead.

"Okay..." Lin returned quietly, one eye closed in an expression Khida didn't know what to make of. The riolu did seem to be a little more at ease now, he had to admit...

* * *

Khida sat in front of the glass pane as he stared out into the night. His paws were crossed before him, and his eyes were fixated on the invisible barrier that sealed off the outside world. Streams of rainwater obscured the other side, but not so much as to rob the eevee of his shadowed view of the passing storm, and the ruined stone pathways battered by its wild touch.

He closed his eyes, and his thoughts wandered back to what the young riolu had said... A voice among the darkness... Neni had more or less dismissed it as some harmless pokemon taking shelter from the storm, it seemed, but Lin didn't seem convinced. That, or she had found some other reason to be afraid...

In the eevee's mind, he saw the small form of a blue dog pokemon, alone and cast into an abyss of darkness. She padded forward step by step, fearfully glancing all about her the entire way, but whatever she was searching for wasn't to be found. From somewhere nearby, there came a voice that chilled her heart yet made it race in the same instant. She suddenly breaks into a run and disappears into the haze of Khida's mind. …What had really happened?

Khida once again opened his eyes, but they weren't focused on the panes in front of him, or anything really. When Khida thought about it, there was one detail Lin didn't share... She heard a 'voice', but she didn't say anything more than that. A voice is never just a sound; it usually carries with it words, a meaning.

He really had no way of knowing for sure, and he doubted he would get a better answer from the dog pokemon. But then, he wasn't about to ask her, anyway.

Khida sighed. It had only been an hour at most since he and Neni returned. So, here he was again, just sitting in the darkness, waiting for morning to come. He turned his head away from the glass wall and back at the dark expanse they had taken over. In the middle of the room, Lin was staring distantly into the dying lamp, which now seemed to be on its breath of life. Her small form was only barely visible in the sparse light, but what caught the light best were her wide eyes, which looked like they were staring beyond the flame. He didn't know what to make of her mood, but she still looked off.

He shrugged.

Khida then glanced at the sleeping forms not far off from Lin. Neni... he couldn't discern her from the others, but he assumed she was somewhere on that side of the room, near her unconscious trainer. Regardless, he didn't really want to speak with her anyway; he had another goal in mind.

Silently, Khida rose to paws and left his place on the floor. Ahead of him, he could see the faint shape of the exit, and beyond, only darkness. Approaching the lamp in the center of the room, he decided to veer off to the side and remain close to the wall, making sure he didn't alert Lin to his leaving. But, he really didn't have to try hard. Lin just sat there staring into the dim light, lost in some mental realm. Upon reaching the exit, Khida quickly disappeared through the doorway.

* * *

Neni's consciousness slowly rose back to the surface of the waking world. As if in welcome, a soft, comforting rhythm sounded in her ear. She felt the blissful warmth of another sleeping form against her own body, and with it, drifted in the familiar scent she had grown so accustomed to over time. Her own breathing joined that of her trainer, and that of her other companions still at rest around her. She vaguely remembered the strange den they had taken refuge in, but little by little, it drifted back into her mind.

Neni gradually blinked her eyes open, only to find the room was still cast in oppressive shadow. However, the extended state of darkness had left her eyes a little more accustomed to it by now, so she wasn't as helplessly blinded as she was before. She breathed in and out, loosening her body and noting how the heat from her breath pleasantly caught in the fur of her tail, which was still curled protectively over her nose. She unfurled her tail away from her body, and gave out a big, toothed yawn that clearly showed off each sharp tooth inside her mouth, as well as her curled pink tongue deeper within.

Tenderly, she removed herself from her place next to her trainer's stomach. After taking a few steps away, she slid her front paws forward and brought her chest down to the floor in a low arch, letting some of the stiffness that settled into her spine work its way back out. That done, she took another deep breath, and for the first time she noticed something curious; the room felt colder than it was before.

Now feeling more alert, she started padding further away from her trainer. She found herself straying towards the only solitary form in the room, Lin. The blue riolu still seemed to be meditating as she watched the dying flame of the lamp. A troubled, distant expression still laid on her face.

Neni sat down nearby, not yet exchanging words with her friend. Lin briefly glanced up at her, acknowledging her presence, but then set her eyes back on the smoldering wick. Curling her tail around her paws, Neni looked around the room, trying to find one specific, male form. However, he was nowhere to be found.

"Have you seen Khida?" She asked aloud.

Honestly not noticing until she said it, Lin gave a start as she searched for the same pokemon she had scanned for only a second ago, finding no more Neni had. It seemed odd, the look in her eyes, Neni thought to herself. She looked nervous, like something was wearing on her nerves.

She thought about it, but she couldn't place why. She knew about the voice, but she doubted it would cause this much of a disturbance on its own… Unconsciously, she shivered again, and brought her tail closer around her body. Was it getting even colder in here?

Then, Lin suddenly snapped her head towards the door, her eyes locked on whatever she saw there. Neni followed her gaze, and saw the shadow of another pokemon. It stood on two legs, motionlessly staring in at them, its form barely discernible in the darkness but bearing the loose shape of an otter. As the moment of locked confrontation ended, the creature disappeared into the deeper regions of the ruined mansion, its eyes flashing a blank, soulless white for a split second before it faded away completely.

As if kicking up some unfelt wind, the small flame between them disappeared with their visitor's departure. Admittedly, Neni was unnerved by the eerie feeling that hung in the air. She felt chilled, but this time it went beyond the cold air.

But, she was able to dismiss it after the first wave of danger passed over her, leaving her fur only a little ruffled afterward. Rationally, she kept a level grasp on the encounter, and it really wasn't anything to make a big deal of. The other pokemon seemed to be reluctant to confront them, that was all. It certainly hid itself well when her and Khida were walking about the mansion, that was for sure, and it if was afraid of them, it'd make perfect sense. It likely just watched on out of curiosity, not intending to be caught at it, but it was. Still, it didn't seem intent on harming them, at any rate.

However, looking over at Lin, the fighting pokemon didn't seem to feel it was as innocent of an occurrence as Neni did. Lin's eyes were still locked on the spot the shadow appeared; they were open wide like discs, and her fur stuck up messily in alarm.

Concerned, Neni asked, "Are you okay?"

Still concentrating fully on the door, she made no reply. Lin then let her gaze fall, and shook her head sullenly.

"...Something's not right." She breathed quietly, barely audible.

A deeper edge of worry set inside Neni's heart. Likely, Lin was more worked up than the situation calls for, but she guessed she couldn't blame her... Though, every pokemon sensed things differently. Regardless, Lin had a reason to be afraid.

"What do you mean?" Neni voiced, tilted her head to the side.

Lin shuffled nervously, struggling to put words to what was on her mind.

"I can't explain it... Not yet; but it just doesn't feel safe here anymore."

Neni was at a loss as to what to say, so she let herself simply fall silent. ...Her mind wandered back to Khida, who was lost somewhere to the darkness of their hastily found shelter. Maybe, the idea occurred to her, they should look for him. She wondered if Lin was thinking about the same thing.

As if confirming it, or more likely by some ulterior motive, Lin's next words were, "I think we should look around a bit more..."

Neni then nodded her head minutely in agreement, believing it would be a good chance to find either of the pokemon not among them, the new addition and fellow refugee alike. Though, as the riolu got up to leave, a look of indecision crossed over her face. She glanced back at Sarah and the others, looking a little troubled. Sensing her thoughts, Neni chimed in.

"Sarah has Darius and Scarlet with her," Neni assured her with a smile, "I think she'll be safe."

With that, the two pokemon wandered off together.

* * *

Moment after moment, the shadows around him seemed to take on a different likeness. It went deeper than the dark, looming forms of human construction; deeper than the absence of light in this dark cave of wood. It was the cold darkness itself. Khida couldn't trust his own rising suspicions, but it somehow seemed more alive than it let on. It was as if it was still the host of something inside of it, like the shell of a sea pokemon, yet it seemed different in the same breath. He couldn't describe it, because it wasn't like anything he had felt before.

Still, Khida was forced to dismiss the feeling. He certainly couldn't think of a good reason to hold onto it, after all. It was just a baseless impression, wasn't it?

He had covered quite a bit of ground by now, but no room stuck out to him in any way, really. He could still find his way around using his partial mental map he had collected of the rooms around him, but each room was just as empty as the last. Khida lifted his muzzle, and like so many times before he sifted through the air with his sensitive nose. Yet again, he found nothing. He looked around, but saw only the vague shapes of human-objects in his path. He almost envied pokemon with better night vision, he thought with a frown.

Eventually, he completed his mental mapping of the floor he was on. After all of his wandering through the darkness he concluded that there was no trace of another pokemon, other than where he knew he'd find Sarah and the others. He purposely kept his distance from that place for two reasons; first, he knew he wouldn't find much there, and second, he didn't particularly want to run into any of others.

However... there was one place yet to check. On the way in, he remembered seeing curved pathways that led upward, to some region above. It seemed quite possible there was a lot more yet to search just over his head. That would be the next best place to wander. Oddly enough though, some indefinable, internal force inside him pointed in that direction too. Maybe he suspected he'd have to go there all along, but subconsciously he wanted to stall that realization.

Khida halted and directed his attention towards his internal map once again, trying to figure out how far away he was from where he needed to be. The entry room flashed into his mind, as well the room he was in now. A path arose from the two disjunctured fragments, and from those fragments, he had his heading.

Khida simply nodded to himself as he turned back the way he had come. Under different circumstances, he would have enjoyed moving faster to make up for having to backtrack, but as it was, he had to keep his pace bordering on lethargic, lest he collide with a shadowed object in his path.

Finally, after passing through three or four more rooms, he found himself at the very first room the group broke through to. Off to the side, he could see the outline of the battered door through which they forced entry through. The sound of rain softly carried through the darkness, and the smell of water and wet earth filled the air. The storm seemed to be almost passed, he observed. While it still poured down, no more were the flashes of thunder and crashes of lightning. The rain and wind that cut through all but the densest of fur was all but gone, leaving a soft, almost calming drizzle.

He closed his eyes, and the scene of the rain soaked band of travelers crossing the entrance's threshold and grouping together just beyond came to mind. The faces of each of the pokemon beside himself, and what he pictured his own expression to be at the time, appeared very clearly in Khida's own imagination. However, they existed only in his mind, and like ghosts, they soon faded away.

Khida opened his eyes once again, and after a moment of thought, he turned his attention towards the stepped paths leading upward, one on each side of the room. He chose the closest one of the two, and put his front paws up on the first ledge. Above, he couldn't see much beyond the next few steps, but he was resolved to investigate. He couldn't help think that the stepped path wasn't suited to his kind, but he moved forward all the same, awkwardly climbing one ledge at a time.

* * *

Neni and Lin wandered through the darkness, but found no trace of their visitor. He couldn't have simply disappeared, Neni reasoned. But then, perhaps he had been staying here for awhile, and knew exactly how to evade them. Though, that wouldn't be hard to do, she thought with a frown. She could only barely navigate her way around in the darkness.

Neni looked over at Lin, who was keeping unusually close to her side. Through the darkness, she could tell easily enough that dog pokemon was still nervous. Concerned for her friend, she gradually slowed to a stop. Unsure, Lin stopped as well, and when she did Neni stared her in the face, the eevee's eyes carefully watching her friend's expression.

"Lin... I know something's wrong. Please, just tell me, okay?" Neni said softly.

Lin shifted uncomfortably and looked off to the side, avoiding her friend's eyes. However, something in her mind was visibly fighting its way to the surface. A small whine escaped Lin.

"T-The voice I heard..." She started, finally.

Lin swallowed, looking off to the side at something unseen in the darkness around them.

"It... It told us to leave..."

Then, Lin's eyes came back to meet Neni's. The fighting pokemon's teary light blue eyes stared at her with a pang of fear.

"But, i-it didn't come from a pokemon, and it wasn't the creature we saw earlier. It wasn't anything. It was just a _voice_."

Neni tilted her head, confused. To be honest, she didn't know what to make of Lin was telling her. Seeing this, Lin continued, adding more emphasis on her words than she was before but still keeping her voice low for sake of the otherwise silent air. In the darkness, Neni could also see an edge of determination in her eyes, mixing with the fear.

"The voice didn't come from _anywhere_! It sounded like it came from all around, but there wasn't anything there! It just echoed off the walls, o-or _from_ the walls, like the shadows were talking to me!"

Lin's short fur raised some amount as she retold what had been haunting her, and even Neni herself felt a little prick along her spine.

"I don't think we're alone... But, it's not a pokemon that we have to worry about..."

* * *

"**Oh, and possibly to clear things up, Lin's emotions and actions may seem abit conflicted at times. Well, it's because she still has a good deal of the innocence (and timidness) of youth, yet she also has the determination and willingness to push herself forward beyond that of a normal pokemon as a trait of her type.**"

**Basically clarifying my earlier comment prior to revision: Lin is to some extent, a puppy, but she's still a fighting type. It also doesn't help that her species is overly sensitive towards certain things. Similar junk is going on with Khida, in a way, but awell.**


	8. Disturbance, AGT Chapter 8

**18 Feb 2012**

**Man, this one seems to jump around a lot, haha... Kinda felt it was necessary to uphold the sense of time, or something like that. Anyways, sorry about that. Will try to keep things a little more steady next time. Maybe.  
**

**Also, I'm kinda in the process of revising some of the earlier chapters, since its been quite some time since writing them... Actually, I improved a few of them already, but I'm kinda not looking forward to revising them yet again, converting the formatting, ect. Gonna be slow as heck, lol.**

**EDIT:Done with that. Hurrah.  
**

* * *

Miyo couldn't stop the tears from falling. Her breath caught in her raw throat every time she tried to breath. She felt like the insides of her body were on fire, but underneath the heat, she felt a chill that pierced her to her core and left only a feeling of emptiness. Miyo wished her heart would just stop. She couldn't bear to live like this. It would be better if she had been the one to die...

How could this happen? Why would anyone do such a thing to a girl as sweet as her...? Natasha never hurt anyone, yet they took her friend away... Now, Miyo would never see her again. She didn't want to go on living without her dearest companion.

Miyo drew her tail closer to her small body, but felt no warmth as she choked once again on the tears and snot that soaked her face. She wanted to desperately cry out the name of the only person that seemed to matter in her life, and the reason she felt so happy an eternity ago. But, she knew it was pointless. It was this sense of uselessness she felt in her heart, this helplessness to change things in the past that crushed her even more. She should have done something, _anything _to prevent this. She didn't realize at the time, but that didn't change the guilt and the pain that were killing her on the inside.

She laid her head on the cold ground with a haze of regret and misery clouding over her mind. Her gaze fell numbly to the ground, barely registering a blurred smear of green and brown through the fog of her tears. Before her, a phantom's arms spread out at its sides rigidly, standing as silent and still as the death it embodied. Trying desperately to shut out the world, she finally closed her eyes and held her breath, wanting to lose herself in the silence. She couldn't take living like this...

* * *

Khida felt as if he was pushing through cobwebs as he walked. The shadows seemed thicker here, almost fluid-like in consistency. Often he would find himself remarking that it felt like he was breathing in water rather than air. Further compounding on the comparison to being submerged, the silence that prevailed throughout the house reigned more oppressively here, seeming to muffle what sound was left. It was as if his hearing was faltering by his mere presence in this area of the house. As he walked onward, he felt a certain indescribable reservation tugging inside his chest. Ignoring it, he boldly pushed on, reasoning that he had no reason to be afraid.

As he had many times before, Khida raised his short muzzle into the air and tentatively tasted the air. He couldn't explain it, but the faded and lost scents he had been finding on the lower floor seemed more recent here. But, there still seemed to be no signs of life, nothing else to indicate that something had been here even a remote amount of time ago. It seemed long abandoned, just like the lower floor. Yet, he couldn't explain the smells that pointed towards something having been here only a few weeks ago, if not days.

He looked around, glad his vision had finally adjusted well enough to the blackness to allow him to navigate by sight alone once again, rather than having to share his senses to learn his way around. Gingerly, he came to another wooden frame and poked his head through the opening. He sniffed the air once again, only to find a very similar sensation of an unexplainable presence. However, this time, the scent seemed less conflicted.

Khida took a few steps into the room, testing the air as he went. ...There was a single scent that stood out against the rest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the trace odor, concentrating on the scent and comparing it to the pool of recollected and unique smells he had come across in the past... Unfortunately, he still couldn't place it. However, it smelled definitively feline. He couldn't place the exact species, or gender... But he could trust that one assumption.

Khida took several more steps forward, coming upon a mass of shadow. The unnatural, but simple square shapes rose above him like boulders, blocking him from moving forward. Nose still minutely twitching, he circled the mass laying up against the wall, until he came to a small cave formed from the skin of one of the shapes. The mysterious scent wafted from the entrance, but it still smelled faded. Khida pushed his furry head into the dark tear, followed by a paw, and finally his entire body. Inside, the space was only about twice the width of his shoulders, and the top of the unnatural cave brushed the tips of his ears. Underneath his paws was a soft bedding that felt quite inviting, but still unwarmed and abandoned. ...He felt a certain calm in the small space. It seemed distant, detached from the house around him, safe. But, it also felt alone, like the den a wild pokemon hides itself in to lick its wounds.

Thoughtfully, Khida laid down on his stomach, breathing in the scents of the strange material underneath him. The feline scent was strong here, but he was no closer to learning about the identity of who had used this den before its abandonment. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine himself in the place of the unknown pokemon, detaching himself from the house around him, and focusing on nothing but this small little space he found himself in. However, nothing came to him. Nothing changed in the darkness, and he was left to wonder without coming upon answer. Opening his eyes and giving his head a rough shake, he emerged from the unnatural cave and padded back into the open space of the room outside. He strode towards the wooden archway a short distance away, however as he walked, a shiver suddenly passed down his spine and ruffled his fur.

He thought he might have imagined the it, but for an instant, the feline scent he had been smelling seemed to have grown stronger, as fresh as anything. However, it disappeared so suddenly and returned to its faded state that he couldn't make anything of it. Stopping to give his shoulder a few comforting licks, in a large part to settle his nerves, he continued on, eyes and ears a little more alert.

* * *

Miyo felt lost, like she was floating in an endless sea of black. The clawing emptiness within her chest and within her stomach had finally consumed her, destroying what connection she had to the world that she no longer wanted to have a part of. But, in the abyss that swallowed her body and soul, she felt no greater comfort than she had before. Everything else seemed to fall away to nothingness around her, but her broken spirit remained, unhindered and still painfully aware.

Her consciousness floated on, no longer thinking of anything other than the memories shining in the recesses of her longing, tormented mind. The days she spent in the sun, running through that grass as she played with her dear trainer, Alastair and Trevet trailing behind and joining in their games. The nights the rain would fall down in its full force, where the four of them would watch the storm pass underneath the arch of the front door, snugly embracing each other and enjoying the gentle song it played for their attentive ears. All the while, they watched the show of lights before their eyes, pressing close to ward of the slight chill in the air. Every moment was valuable to her. However, more precious than any other memory was the feeling of her body held against Natasha's chest. She reveled in the distant sensation, allowing it to help cover some of the wounds in her heart, and make way for a numb peace to overtake her remaining senses. She remembered the quiet beat of Natasha's gentle heart quite vividly, and the soft breath against her fur that she loved. The memory seemed to be still be so real, so close... but she knew she'd never be able to have it again, but she would never let the feeling go.

Then, it started to sink in. The closeness she felt, the warmth against her fur that she thought were the sensations of a fantasy... In reality, she was being held by more than the embrace of a dream. A painfully familiar scent filled her nose, one previously nothing more than memory that she yearned so badly to have be real again, but now it seemed innocent and alive again. The scent of her closest friend broke over her and unbalanced the blackness that clouded her heart.

_...It couldn't be._

Trembling, she slowly opened her eyes, afraid of what she might see before her. The first thing she registered was pale skin, slightly out of focus but unmistakably real. Her gaze shifted upward to a human girl's smiling face, affection and kindness shining in her green eyes.

..._Natasha_?

She couldn't believe it. Miyo blinked several times to try to clear her vision, but her human's face only became more apparent. But... it was _impossible_...

"Miyo, why are you looking at me like that. You didn't think I would break my promise, did you?" The girl said with a smile.

She couldn't understand how... but she wanted to believe it so badly. Who else could this little girl be? Her tears were now streaming down her face stronger than ever, the chill in her heart gave way to fragile, but fervorous love. A long, relieved cry escaped Miyo's aching throat. Her heart beat faster, restored with a new awakening in life as she pressed her small body against the warmth of her dear friend's chest. The girl's arms came around Miyo and held her close in return, the heat of their two bodies drawing them closer together.

"Miyo, you don't have to hurt anymore." The girl's sweet voice breathed into her ear, a voice Miyo had thought she would never again only a short time ago.

"We're all here for you." Natasha added.

Confused for a moment, Miyo stared up uncomprehendingly into Natasha's face. Then, the presence of two other pokemon finally dawned on her. Miyo looked off to the side, seeing the bright faces of her two friends, Alastair and Trevet. Alastair's orange and beige face shone brightly with a toothy grin in return, next to Trevet's comparatively emotionless but likewise smiling face. They were together again. It was as if nothing had ever happened, she thought. Once again, she was surrounded by the friends she loved more than anything in this world. The broken haze she had left behind seemed more and more distant, and she never wanted to return to that. Never. She wanted to be here, with Natasha, and with Alastair and Trevet, forever.

"We'll always be together, Miyo." Natasha whispered with a soft smile, a smile that Miyo happily returned.

..._We'll always be together._

* * *

Khida continued to wander the halls, his gaze constantly sifting through the shadows. He couldn't shake the strange thickness of the air, the vague sense of something amiss beyond the scope of his senses. His mind returned to the 'voice' that the riolu had heard... Something speaking from the darkness. Yet, he hadn't come across anything of the like thus far... But Khida felt there was something to uncover here regardless. He couldn't put his paw on what it was, or whether or not he should have been intentionally seeking it out, but he continued on regardless. It as though he was entranced, swept away in the curiosity and the mystery that tainted this alien place. It also helped that his other choices were pretty much being around 'them' or getting soaked in the rain again. Just as well, he had faith in his own protective instincts, so he wasn't too worried about stepping into danger unawares. Thinking about it, there almost seemed to be a certain peace beyond the subtle tone of unease that still coaxed him into breathing silently and shallowly.

Coming to another archway, Khida carefully ducked through it and into another dark room. He sifted through what little scents remained, but nothing of interest prevailed. He then walked across the room, pausing to study the shadowed obstacles and decorations scattered here and there, but nothing seemed to matter much in relation to what he was after. Moving on, he disappeared through the next archway's threshold. After a few minutes, he concluded the next room was no different than the last. Returning to the outer hallway, Khida continued his silent wandering through the upper floor.

* * *

Miyo felt as light as a feather. The joy in her heart overflowed and poured out in melodous laughter as she chased after her beloved human friend. Two other pokemon trailed loudly after them, happily joining in on their games but not straying so close as to risk becoming 'it'. She remembered this feeling, everything was just the way it was before… before what? She didn't know, and she couldn't bring herself to ask herself any longer. Whatever it was, it wasn't any more important than a bad dream, a dark mist that disappeared in its entirety in the light of day.

Seeing the smiling, happy face of the girl she loved so strongly, she reconfirmed to herself, that she knew this was real. They were together, and they could be happy. Nothing had to come between them.

* * *

Khida's ears twitched as they strained to catch something hanging in the air that he couldn't identify. Twisted in with the silence, there was a trace of something alien... Something that buzzed in the air just beyond his scope of detection. On top of that, he could have sworn his eyes were playing tricks on him. It wasn't so much the shadows, but the false glimpses of immaterial light that played in his peripheral vision, tantalizing his visual senses but not lingering long enough for him to say for sure whether or not it was just an illusion...

Khida sighed in growing frustration. He was confused, he'd admit it. He felt like he was getting ever closer to what he had been looking for, but couldn't make total sense of what his senses were telling him anymore. Sure, he could still navigate, and see the outlines of the obstacles around him, but he started doubt his senses some degree, giving rise to one important question that played in the back of his mind. ...Was he truly as safe as he thought? He still didn't feel like he was in any danger... But he hoped that part of his senses weren't faltering as well.

The back-and-forth sound that Khida couldn't identify grew in intensity, but not clarity. His pace slowed as it echoed inside of his head, seeming to twist itself within his mind and cause him undue discomfort. It was as if it was only within his head, where it painfully echoed and intensified inside the walls of his skull. If that was the case, if he was wrong and the air around him was completely silent, then perhaps he really was losing grasp of things more than he thought.

It was then that he caught a glimpse of something that made him even more doubtful. Only a short distance ahead of him, a blue wisp of light faded into view as if previously concealed. The wisp floated ominously, unhindered by true form or substance, flickering in its transparency that eluded visual focus. It caste a dull glow onto the surrounding hallway, but it seemed somehow untouched regardless, as if the wisp's light only vaguely touched it. Khida's ears twitched as the strange static sound he couldn't place earlier seemed to grow even stronger. The blue flame seemed to waver and drift away from him, completely acting on its own accord. However, try as he might, his eyes were completely unable to focus on it, instead he felt like he was looking past it, as if it was not even there... In all honestly, even seeing it before him, he was unsure of what he was seeing, and it scared him.

As it disappeared once again, falling back into the shadows, the identity of the sound finally dawned on him...

...It was laughter. Carefree, _dead _laughter...

Clenching his teeth, he pushed himself to follow the path of the blue flare prior to its disappearance. He couldn't help but ask him why, but he didn't have an answer.

* * *

"There really is no sign of him... Or, anything, really.." Neni sighed.

"Yeah..." Lin returned half-heartedly.

Following that, they continued to uphold the uncomfortable silence surrounding them, ears alert for any movement. Neni's eyes shifted through the darkness, barely able to make sense of the shapes nearby. Having had plenty of time for her eyes to adapt helped some amount, but she still had only so much sense of her surroundings. As it was, she had to keep to a walking pace, making her agility rather useless if they were to run into trouble. She didn't like the thought of not being disadvantaged so heavily.

Coming to an open door, she sniffed the entrance, presuming nothing was inside because there was no trail to be detected of either Khida or the other pokemon. They had already checked so much of the house, but they always managed to find more to search.

"How many rooms are there?" Neni asked with a sigh.

"...There's three more doors ahead." Lin spoke softly, her eyes piercing into the shadows beyond, where Neni only saw as emptiness.

"How can you see so well in this darkness, anyways?" The eevee asked, honestly curious how her friend found it so easy to navigate in the consuming shadow.

"...I can't explain it, but I can _see _the presence of things..." Lin replied, her voice carrying a certain far-off quality. "It's usually hard to make out, but even things like trees and rocks have a touch of... something, to them. I think the darkness makes it easier to see."

After that, Lin fell silent, staring somewhere off to the side. Neni, looking carefully at her face, felt a little concerned. She couldn't help but wonder, if her friend really had an unusual ability to sense things... Could Lin see something in the house that she couldn't? A growing worry continued to twist within her stomach, founded the uncertainty she felt in the back of her mind.

She didn't like being lost in this darkness. It seemed choking in a certain way. Realizing how tired she felt of wandering aimlessly, she gradually came to a stop and simply sat on the floor with her tail curled around her front paws. Lin likewise halted, though her gaze was still shiftily lingered the shadows around her, the same distant look as before playing across her face. Neni was starting to doubt their choice of seeking out the other missing pokemon, especially since it has mostly been wandering around while nearly helpless, considering what little was left of her sight.

However, something broke her away from her thoughts. A distant sound, just barely audible enough to pick up carried through the silence. It sounded like the high-pitched, but subtle sound of rusted hinges. Following it, was the sound of floorboards giving way underneath something's weight. However, unless she misheard it, it seemed some distance away, perhaps several room away or even beyond a wall somewhere. She could attribute it to the house settling in the aftereffects of the storm, but something about it seemed unnaturally patterned, like something was definitely moving about the house. That thought in mind, the fur on her back pricked in apprehension on instinct.

She turned to Lin, who after only a few seconds returned her look, looking quite uneasy.

"...Neni..." Lin whispered. "I don't... ...Feel good about this." She said, now shivering and looking rather cold.

* * *

Khida's stomach was twisting itself into a knot. He didn't feel compelled to flee and return the way he had come, but instead he felt compelled to follow the flare despite how unexplainable and honestly unsettling it was for him to do so. His eyes seemed to be adapting better and better, but the darkness still bothered him. Yet, it was as if he was seeing the cast-off light of some unknown source, different from that of the wisp he had witnessed only moments ago. Looking down at the wooden flooring, he could even see the texture. Instead of looking it, it seemed as if it was growing progressively cared for and colorful. Same went for the whole of his surroundings, as if the strange, source-less light was bringing it alive again.

Then, amazingly, he stumbled upon a room illuminated in full. Blinking, he couldn't believe his eyes. While standing in the door-frame, he saw huge windows overlooking a glorious summer day, an emerald tree just beyond swaying in the breeze as golden sunlight streamed down on the mess of figures laying on the floor. Again, the sound of laughter came to his ears with a haunting melody. He stared at the individual faces of four figures, one human and three pokemon, splayed out over the floor in their play. One, a young girl in a flowing white dress, the others an otter, a spiked shrew, and a purple feline. The feline in particular caught his eye.

Only seconds upon his entry, they turned to him with surprise. In their astonishment, they fell completely silent and still. Both groups remained motionless, their eyes locked, but otherwise unsure of what to do as the atmosphere turned darker with every passing second. And still, the intense alarm would not subside inside Khida's mind. The scene struck him as horrifying, contrary to the bright sunlight that, to him, only seemed to further chill in the air. He had begun to notice the subtle, skeletal features of the pokemon before him, the missing skin, and the fact that _there is no sun in the middle of the night_.

* * *

She didn't understand.

Across from Miyo, seemingly untouched by the sunlight was the brown form of a strange intruder. He stood rigid, staring in on them in their play.

But, she had never seen the eevee before. Disturbingly, there seemed to be something... off about him. Like, he was from a different world entirely. He outwardly looked like an ordinary eevee, but something still seemed, _off _about him, and it scared her. His appearance made her feel sick and she couldn't explain why.

She didn't understand.

Her cheeks felt wet. She didn't realize it, but tears had begun falling from her eyes again. A strange emptiness was growing inside her chest. The happiness she felt only a second ago started to feel... wrong, insubstantial, as if only a dream. And still, Miyo stared into the eyes of the eevee before her as if entranced. Eyes, that were like two silver crescent moons hung upside-down in an empty expanse as black as the night sky. She felt his eyes draining her of all warmth as she stared into them, but she could not break away.  
She didn't understand.

He seemed to be looking right through her. She wanted him to stop. To leave. She wanted to be left in peace. She wanted to be alone with her friends, forever. Somehow, she felt so long as she was staring at the visitor, so long as he was standing there staring in on them, nothing would ever be okay. The world began to twist around her again, undermining her sense of what was real and what was a not. Red and black began to stain her vision, and her body began painfully to throb with a sinister pulse that radiated out from her. Everything seemed to grow insubstantial around her, her body feeling like it was floating away, and being dragged down into somewhere she didn't want to be.

SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND

* * *

Khida watched as the sunlight faded away, taking the four figures with it and replacing them with only chilling darkness. He remained frozen where he stood, his nerves now completely shot and his fear keeping him from making a sound, even to breath. He had watched as the whole scene disappeared before him, leaving him in an emptiness and silence that had never felt so menacing before. He didn't want to be here any more, and with that final resolve, he finally shook off some of the shock and sprinted back in the direction he had come, almost regretting that he allowed himself to pursue this matter as far as he did. At that moment, he didn't care about the sound he was making as his paws struck the floor, nor about the company he would be returning to. He simply needed to get out of there and get to somewhere safer.

* * *

**So, that's the end of Chapter 8. Not sure how I should be going about the next, but hopefully it won't take like, a year to finish it this time. xD**


End file.
